Bee Season / American Beauty

Let's clear up one thing right away: contrary to what you might have assumed from the trailer, "Bee Season" is not a film about spelling bees. If you want to see that film, rent "Spellbound"- a documentary about the particular intensity of those contents. A film about contests or sporting events, no matter how well-made, always ends up about seeing who wins. Fortunately, "Bee Season" is about a lot more than that.

The film is the complicated story of a short time in the life of one family. The Naumanns seem like the ideal intellectual family at first: the father is a Jewish theology professor, the mother is a biologist, the son plays the cello and the younger daughter is quiet and well-behaved (if a bit unremarkable), but their family is unravelling bit by bit. The delicate balance of their family unit shifts when Eliza, the unremarkable and unnoticed daughter begins displaying an uncanny spelling ability- without studying or training, she is able to spell all sorts of obscure words without effort. She inevitably wins every spelling bee contest she enters at school and is eventually on her way to district and state contests. The father, played with a convincing arrogance by Richard Gere (who has fortunately realized that his days of playing a romantic lead are over) is elated because he believes that his religious guidance has created a mystic with the power to speak to God. Why God would want Eliza to win spelling bees, we don't knowbut he seems like the type to whom winning is everything- even in religious matters.

As Tyler Durden points out in Fight Club, "Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?" In the Naumann family, the father is very much a God-like figure- unfortunately, he only has the capacity to show love to one person at a time. First he loved his wife, and promised to save her from her obsessions, then his son, who tries to be just like his father. When he begins showering Eliza with love and affection, the other members of the family are lost and start to behave in strange and destructive ways.

In "American Beauty", we see a similar destruction of a family who seem utterly average to the outside world. However, their family suffers because the father figure is weak, ineffective and generally miserable. When he decides to take charge of his life and re-shape it to his desires, his wife and daughter are appalled. Neither of these two films ends with a typical happy ending, but both are very affecting in their examination of family relationships and personal choice.
Selina frequents movie theatres and video stores so often that she is often misateken for an employee. She actually works at the Epcor Centre and also organizes a monthly performance event. For details, go to http://spaces.msn.com/members/redmilerevenge/. Please send questions, comments and offers of fame and fortune to sechebib@gmail.com.