''Bee Season'' is a 2005 American drama film adaptation of the 2000 novel of the same name by Myla Goldberg. The film was directed by

Scott McGehee Scott McGehee (born April 20, 1962) is an American filmmaker. He is a Columbia University graduate and did graduate work in the Rhetoric department at UC Berkeley. He was born in California, and currently resides in New York City. McGehee is ...

and David Siegel and written by

Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal Naomi Foner ( Achs; born March 4, 1946) is an American screenwriter and director. She is the mother of actor and actress Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. Early life and education Foner was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of doctors Rut ...

. It stars

Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...

and

Juliette Binoche Juliette Binoche (; born 9 March 1964) is a French actress and dancer. She has appeared in more than sixty feature films and has been the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Silver Bear, ...

Plot

Saul Naumann is a somewhat controlling

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish husband and father. A Religious Studies professor at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

, Saul wrote his graduate

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

on the

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defin ...

. Because he was a devout Jew, his wife Miriam converted to

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

when they married, and he nurtured his son Aaron as a traditional studious Jew like himself. When daughter Eliza wins her class spelling bee, they embark on a course of Kabbalah study to help her win. The film follows the family and the spiritual quests upon which they journey, in large part because of Saul: Miriam's attempt to make herself whole, Aaron's religious uncertainty, and Eliza's desire to be closer to her father. Miriam lives a secret life throughout her entire marriage to Saul, trying to fulfill the religious idea she learned from him, ''

tikkun olam ''Tikkun olam'' ( he, תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם, , repair of the world) is a concept in Judaism, which refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world. In classical rabbinic literature, the phrase referred to leg ...

,'' or "repairing the world" and "reuniting its shards." In momentary flashbacks by Miriam, we glimpse a scene of a crashed car with shattered glass, apparently the basis of an underlying hurt she has been suffering since childhood, perhaps the death of her parents. The beautiful life she had before the accident, symbolized by the kaleidoscope she always carried as a child, through which she was presented with its beautiful view of the world, is suddenly shattered when the accident occurred. Thereafter, seeking to restore the broken shards, Miriam compulsively creates beautiful light gathering objects (sometimes stealing them) and storing them in a secret warehouse. Saul's son, Aaron, grows unsure of the Judaism foisted on him by his father, and in trying to find a faith he personally believes in, he becomes a

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna may refer to: * International Society for Krishna Consciousness, a group commonly known as "Hare Krishnas" or the "Hare Krishna movement" * Hare Krishna (mantra) The Hare Krishna mantra, also referred to reverentially as the (" ...

after meeting a woman named Chali in the park. For Eliza, her experience begins with a desire to be as close to her father as Aaron is; the two would often have discussions about Judaism and play music together. Saul's graduate thesis on Kabbalah writer

Abraham Abulafia Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia ( he, אברהם בן שמואל אבולעפיה) was the founder of the school of "Prophetic Kabbalah". He was born in Zaragoza, Spain in 1240 and is assumed to have died sometime after 1291, following a stay on the ...

(who believed that careful analysis of words could lead to contact with God) brings Saul and Eliza closer together when Saul learns Eliza has won the district spelling bee. Upon learning of her success, Saul takes control of Eliza's life, coaching her in the Kabbalistic teachings he knows so well. Eliza enjoys the renewed attention of her father and pursues the competition for her father's involvement. This comes at the expense of Aaron, who receives less time with Saul, even as he falls deeper into religious questioning. At the center of the film, Eliza becomes Saul's newest religious project. Eliza continues to do well at spelling bees, utilizing her spiritual gift, as Abraham Abulafia described: visions appear to her and help her spell words no matter how difficult. Saul's obsession with his daughter's gift and the opportunities it presents to him consume him to the point that he is callously ignorant of the collapse of his family around him — his son's interest in Hinduism, which soon comes between him and his father, and his wife's psychological problems suddenly thrust upon him — it seems that the entire family is now "broken," like a microcosm of the world; but can it be fixed, can the broken shards be restored? This is where Eliza enters the picture, a child with a mystical gift. The night before the final round of the spelling bee, Eliza uses her father's notes on Abulafia's system to obtain "the ear of God," allowing God to flow through her. Her body convulsing epileptically on the floor, Eliza apparently makes that mystical connection, providing her the healing power of God. In the final scene, Eliza, on the verge of winning the national spelling bee, and now empowered with the ability to heal her family, deliberately misspells the word

origami ) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a f ...

, thereby losing the competition. Immediately upon her sacrifice, healing apparently takes place between Saul and Aaron as they embrace and openly express loving emotion; and Miriam, watching the competition on television from a sanitarium (where she has been following her arrest and the subsequent discovery of her secret), is apparently in the process of being healed as well.

Cast

as Saul *

as Miriam * Flora Cross as Eliza *

Max Minghella Max Giorgio Choa Minghella (born 16 September 1985) is an English actor, film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is known for his roles in the films ''Syriana'' (2005), ''Art School Confidential'' (2006), ''Elvis and Anabelle'' (2007), '' ...

as Aaron *

Kate Bosworth Catherine Anne Bosworth (born January 2, 1983) is an American actress. Following minor roles in the films '' The Horse Whisperer'' (1998) and ''Remember the Titans'' (2000), she rose to prominence with her role as a young surfer in the box-offi ...

as Chali

Production

The regional bee was filmed at the Albany High School gym. Also seen is the downtown section on Park Street in

Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...

. While the literal plot simply follows a girl from a somewhat

dysfunctional family A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse and sometimes even all of the above on the part of individual parents occur continuously and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such ...

moving through the world of competitive spelling, the actual plot of ''Bee Season'' is a much more complex one on personal religious views. Saul can be seen as a Kabbalistic figure, desperately trying to come closer to God while remaining oblivious to Eliza's natural gift for connecting to God, and to his family's deepening troubles. Instead of using knowledge (as one does in Kabbalah), Saul uses each of his family members in a (mostly vain) attempt to deepen his own religious sense (an act finally uncovered by Aaron near the film's end). Meanwhile, his wife, Miriam, is caught stealing and is sent to a mental institution. The relationships amongst all members of the family, which were shallow and disconnected to begin with, fall apart. But family healing is implied in the final scene in which Eliza purposely loses the National Spelling Bee, a sacrifice drawing upon the spiritual connection she made the night before.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gives the film a score of 43% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 5.46/10. The consensus reads, "''Bee Season'' is an intelligent, but frustratingly distant and diffuse drama about family dysfunction."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gives the film as score of 54% based on reviews from 32 critics. As of January 29, 2006, ''Bee Season'' had taken a gross of $1,177,082 in the United States, with an opening American weekend of $120,544. ''Bee Season''s single award nomination was a

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards The Critics' Choice Movie Awards (formerly known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award) is an awards show presented annually by the American-Canadian Critics Choice Association (CCA) to honor the finest in cinematic achievement. Writ ...

Young Actress nomination for Flora Cross.

Home media

The DVD was released in the US on April 4, 2006.

References

External links

* * {{Scott McGehee and David Siegel 2005 films 2005 drama films American drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s Hebrew-language films Films about dysfunctional families Films about spelling competitions Films based on American novels Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films shot in San Francisco Fox Searchlight Pictures films Regency Enterprises films 2005 multilingual films American multilingual films 2000s American films