I just watched the film Spellbound. It was on Channel 4 last night and it looked vaguely intriguing, so I thought I’d have a look at it. Spelling Bees are something of an unknown here in the UK. Its an odd concept – a national competition in spelling words, most of them so wierd and convoluted you’re probably never going to need them. Yet its a really big event in the USA. This film is a documentary about the 1999 final, and follows eight children as they move up to the finals. All of the kids were from quite different backgrounds, so it was obvious race, religion and money had nothing to do with it. These kids were genuinely intelligent, and for the most part, surprisingly quite modest about it.
All of the kids seemed to be there because they wanted to be, but they were all happy that if they didn’t win, it wasn’t a big issue to them. They were happy to be there, and take part. Usually in these situations you find over-bearing parents pushing the kids incredibly hard, but that also didn’t seem to be the case. The parents were supportive, and very encouraging, but none seemed to be pushing the kids to do something they didn’t want to do. The motivation seemed to come from the kids, not their parents.
Overall, it was a nice documentary, and I’m glad I watched it. You certainly felt you were as good as there, under the spotlights, trying to work out how to spell a word you’d never heard of before. Good stuff!
Yeah, it was very cute, I liked the wierd boy..