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Movie Reviews, & Film Industry Commentary
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2006 – PG – 107 min.
Director: Doug Atchison
Primary Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Keke Palmer, Curtis Armstrong, Tzi Ma, Lee Thompson Young, J.R. Villareal, Sahara Garey
Stars **** 1/2 (of 5)
Popcorn ***** (of 5)
Film Type(s): Drama, Competition, Urban
Synopsis: 11 year old girl Akeelah Anderson (Palmer) learns to believe in herself and her potential in this inspiring film. Akeelah is being raised by her widowed mother, Tanya (Bassett) and though very smart, is fearful of being a bookworm around classmates. A teacher that see’s her potential encourages her to enter the school spelling bee and wins. She soon realizes as she moves up in competition that the going gets tough, so she convinces strict spelling coach / college Professor Dr. Larabee (Fishburne) to help her. Tanya, however, becomes increasingly disturbed by the privileged people involved in the Bees, and believes that homework, not the competition, should be Akeelah’s focus.
Review: This powerful and inspiring drama is a triumph of style, writing, directing, editing, cinematography, and most of all performing. 11-year old Keke Palmer gives one of the year’s best performances as troubled Akeelah, who is afraid of being labeled as a bookworm and is still mourning the murder of her father by taking comfort in words. When a teacher sees her potential and insists she enter Spelling Bees, English Professor Dr. Larabee (Fishburne) agrees to coach her, eventually forming a Father-Daughter relationship. The only problem is that Akeelah’s mother, Tanya (Bassett), did not give permission and when she finds out, wants to keep her home to do her homework. Akeelah is a tour-de-force film because these performances remain very realistic, making course corrections whenever it approaches melodrama that are just in time without a single false note. Also, the cinematography, lighting, and editing are all first rate without being overt, the “50,000 Coaches” sequence in particular being a triumph of editing. Writer / Director Atchison brings this close cousin of Rocky to the screen after having seen the Scripp’s National Spelling Bee on ESPN one year and found it incredible that such young kids could spell words like “Engastrimythic” or “Ginglymus” (this reviewer had to look them up). After reading the script, Fishburne agreed to Produce the film and it was picked up as the first film from coffee house giant Starbucks Entertainment. This was the first time Fishburne and Bassett have appeared on screen together since 1992’s What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Awards Likely: Oscar Nominations for Picture, Actress (Palmer), Supporting Actor (Fishburne), Writing (Atchison), and Editing, most likely to win in Writing and Actress. Also expect it to get nominations from the various film guilds and Golden Globes
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