ktincu Blog

Akeelah is a good feel-good

Under discussion:
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Under discussion:

Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

I was so not surprised to get sucked in by all the "feel good" feelings while watching Akeelah and the Bee. It has all the necessary trappings:

- a school official who believes in the potential of an underprivileged child
- a stressed out, overworked mom who eventually learns to support her child's dreams
- a friendship between a working class black girl and an upper middle class Hispanic boy
- the eventual friendship between the black girl and a highly driven Asian boy
- a brother who "got out" of the neighborhood and another who is "sinking in" (but shows signs of hope by the film's end)
- a successful man who can't get beyond his own demons until a smart and sassy little girl comes into his life
- school bullies who are the losers in the end
- reasons to cheer

In general, many people in Akeelah's world are obstacles that eventually come around. It doesn't get more feel-good than that.

But amazingly, this film did not annoy me. In part, it's because Akeelah is such an engaging, endearing character. Even more so, though, it's because I watched the film with three girls, ages 6, 8 and 10. Not only were they completely rapt with attention through the whole film, they promptly began playing "spelling bee" as soon as the film was over. During dinner they even suggested that it would be fun each night at dinner to always spell the last word of any sentence spoken by any person at the table. (We let that go on for about 5 minutes before putting an end to the madness.)

Overall, I think this is a good family film. Kids sometimes need the cliches and feel-good trappings to get into a film and get what would otherwise be too-subtle messages. My kids haven't seen Spellbound yet, but I'm not sure they would be quite as inspired by it (even though it is a much better film). They didn't love Mad Hot Ballroom the way I expected because there were too many interviews (i.e.: slow parts). Ah kids. There's no accounting for taste.

For more on my feelings about Akeelah's ties to Starbucks Entertainment, read my SpoutBlog post.

posted on Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:31 AM by ktincu

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