Spellbound

rated – HOT! HOT! HOT!

This is another in a long line of excellent documentary features.  It is about a spelling bee, of all things!  It is riveting.  It had me crying in the first 5 minutes.

'Welcome to our hive,’ say the Ambler Pennsylvania people (daughter April).  Welcome, indeed, to this strange world of kids with a talent for spelling all sorts of unlikely words, and the families that support them. We see a large number of kids gradually whittled down to a small number, and the tension is almost unbearable – as is the temptation to shout out the spelling of the words yourself!

Flypaper!  Get it out on DVD.  It’s not the cinematic quality that counts here. It’s the humanity.