Bee Season

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C-     Film: C-

 

 

I was hoping the Scott McGehee/David Siegel film Bee Season (2005) would be an exciting narrative film about children going for a big spelling bee.  Instead, it is a shockingly annoying and obnoxious film about an (to say the least) overzealous, feel-good father (Richard Gere, who I do like) encouraging his daughter (Flora Cross) to spell as well as possible.  It is one thing to encourage a child, but all the spiritual and other items he tags onto this mission is so junky that you wonder how she remembers her name.

 

Juliette Binoche is the wife who just stands by and thinks this is a good thing.  Co-produced by the great director Mark Romanek (see Films Of Mark Romanek and One Hour Photo elsewhere on this site), I have never seen so many good intensions in a single film backfire so badly in a long time, but that is what sadly happens here.  Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal’s screenplay is written with intelligence and literacy, yet never coheres or gels into whatever was intended.  If anything, this is worth seeing for how many things did not work.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is nothing special or colorful with some silly digital effects that are supposed to be magical, but make old Electric Company episodes look high definition.  Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens tries to shoot the film with patches of suspense, but they hold little water, while detail is not great either.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not awful, but the score by Peter Nashel is too melodramatic and does not do much to help the many problems here.  Extras include six deleted scenes that would not have helped, two audio commentaries that show the film intended was not quite made, the original theatrical trailer and three featurettes.  All in all, you are better off playing Scrabble!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo