"Bee Season" Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel With Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Kate Bosworth Rated PG-13 Grade: C+
Despite the title of the movie, "Bee Season" does not really have that much to do with spelling bees. The film is more concerned with Jewish Mysticism, Tikkun Olam (the Kabbalah theme that states what's shattered can be made whole again), and family secrets.
Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel use the concept of spelling bees to try to tie all these themes together and create a haunting and poignant movie about an all-American family going to pieces. Unfortunately, the film falls short of this goal. "Bee Season" is a confusing movie that lacks flow and goes in many different directions.
Based on the novel by Myla Goldberg, "Bee Season" centers on the extraordinary Naumann family. Saul (Richard Gere) is a fanatical religious studies professor at the local university in California, Miriam (Juliette Binoche) is a scientist and Aaron (Max Minghella) is an accomplished cellist. The youngest daughter, Eliza (Flora Cross), is seemingly mediocre.
Eliza loses her mediocrity shortly after the film begins when she wins her school spelling bee. Because of her ability to "see" the words as she spells them, her father believes that she has a special connection with God. He starts to teach Eliza about the mysterious religion of Kabbalah and the concept that God and the universe speak through letters and words. This starts to throw the family off balance and begins to break up the seemingly perfect fa?ade.
Aaron, once the favorite in his father's eyes, is supportive of Eliza but quickly starts to rebel when he realizes that Eliza has taken over this designation. He starts to question his faith in Judaism and along the way meets Chali (Kate Bosworth), who appears to be a traveling Hare Krishna saleswoman.
Eliza's gift also starts to unravel her mother. Mom is constantly reminded about the premature death of her own parents and has a habit of disappearing each night to different houses and no one quite understands why.
Unfortunately, none of the actors really gets into their characters and all seem to lack depth and emotion. Gere was miscast as the Jewish professor. He seems too perfect of a husband and skims the surface of his character. Binoche seems bored throughout the entire movie as the mom. Flora Cross, excellent in her performance as Eliza, is the film's saving grace.
None of the subplots in "Bee Season" really ever connect. It is a hard movie to follow. How the directors and the screenwriters came to the conclusion that a spelling bee could create so many problems and destroy a family is difficult to understand. "Bee Season" lacks the feeling and direction that it had the potential and opportunity to convey.
