The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Sit for a spell
Netflix’s entertaining ‘Spelling the Dream’ looks at Indian-Americans’ success in Scripps bee
In journalism school, you’re bound to have more than one professor warn you not to become reliant on spellcheck, that it is a “crutch.” ¶ Yeah, well, truth be told, many of us need it. ¶ You know who DON’T need no stinkin’ spellcheck? The oh-so-impressive boys and girls who achieve their way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the ultimate in letter-arranging competition. ¶ We know these smart, determined youths make for great documentary subjects since 2002’s Academy Award-nominated “Spellbound,” which chronicled eight competitors in the 1999 bee. It isn’t all that far into “Spelling the Dream” — a new documentary available through Netflix — that “Spellbound” is mentioned for helping to foster interest in the subject. ¶ And while “Spelling the Dream” doesn’t quite pack the engaging punch of that work and some of the other best documentaries of the last several years, it is wholly entertaining and informative in its own right.
Directed by Sam Rega (“League of Millions,” “Miami Noir: The Edward E. Teele Story”), “Spelling the Dream” offers a different focus from “Spellbound,” that of the success — the dominance, in fact — of Indian-Americans in the Scripps National Spelling Bee dating back more than a decade.
“Champion spellers, we are now in uncharted territory,” says Jacques Bailly, the Scripps bee’s pronouncer and champion of the 1980 competition, late into the 2019 bee early on in the film. “We’re throwing the dictionary at you, and so far you are showing this dictionary who’s boss.”
After 19 (19!) rounds, eight hopefuls remain — a stunning six of them of Indian descent.
More words for them. “Auslaut.” “Erysipelas.” “Bougainvillea.” “Aiguillette.” “Pendeloque.” “Palama.” “Cernuous.” “Odylic.”
The spellers offer their attempts at these words — too dangerous for mere mortals — and hear again and again in response, “You are correct.”
What ultimately results is the unprecedented naming of eight co-champions, the so-called “elite eight” and “octochamps.” Wild.
While “Spelling the Dream” begins with the history-making 2019 competition, its main focus is on the lead-up-to the bee three years earlier and the 2016 competition itself.
We get to know four of the Indian-American competitors: Ashrita, 10, Shourav, 14; Tejas, 14; and adorable 7-year-old Akash.
Understandably, Akash has drawn a lot of attention within the world of competitive spelling, and we watch as he spells “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” for the film crew, waving his hands throughout the process.
“Yeah,” he tells the filmmakers, “I think the word just filled up the entire screen.” (They made sure it does in post-production.)
Viewers will get insight into the various ways they prepare to compete, which, as you’d imagine, is a tremendous commitment of time and energy.
“To be a winner, you probably need to master 60 (thousand) to 100,000 words,” says Valerie Browning, co-founder of Hexco Academic, a company that creates study guides for academic competitions. “You also need to understand patterns from different languages. You need to study old bees.”
And, she adds, “You’ve got to be able to stand on stage and think on your feet and present these words without getting distracted and getting flustered and think through what the world means — and you’ve got a limited time clock to do this. It’s a huge amount of work.”
Many of the observers interviewed are themselves of Indian-American backgrounds, including Kevin Negandhi, an ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor and host of its popular telecast of the later rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.” You’ll also hear from Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent and neurosurgeon; Pawan Dhingra, sociologist at Tufts University; and Hari Kondabolu, a comedian who in 2013, while a writer for the short-lived FX show “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell,” wrote and performed a piece about the Scripps event on the show.
“If it isn’t obvious yet, I love the spelling bee,” Kondabolu says in the segment, wearing a fake spelling bee placard with his name and contestant number on it, “or, as I call it, ‘the Indian Super Bowl.
“It gives me great pleasure to finally say, ‘Hey, white people, learn the language.’”
More seriously, “Spelling the Dream” delves into the roots of Indian-Americans success in the bee and what may drive them to pursue the goal of winning it so doggedly.
The clips of the bee are terrific if familiar, the young people asking Bailly for alternate pronunciations of a word, its root origins and to use it in a sentence. Sometimes, they even have a little fun with it.
“Could you please sing it in a song?” one person jokes.
With a laugh, a bemused Bailly responds, “You don’t want that.”
As the event progresses, tough words are handled. “Chryselephantine” and “foederatus”? No problem.
Of course, there are other words, such as “ruusette,” that best the spellers. (Seriously, bee, you’re going to do a kid with back-to-back U’s like that? Not cool.)
Without spoiling too much of what is now yearsold information, we eventually come down to two very young impressive competitors, a girl and a boy. And more words. “Durchkomponiert,” “tchefuncte,” “cheiropompholyx,” “wayzgoose.”
Please, do not attempt to spell these at home. (And if you’re wondering if your closest zoo has a wayzgoose, it does not.)
The contest ends with a championship well-earned and then confetti following around him or her in slowmotion.
Let’s give the last word on this intriguing subject in the capable hands of the funny Kondabolu:
“The only way IndianAmerican kids are losing the spelling bee is if they switch to Spanish next year — and then it’s still, like, 5050.”
NOTE: Spellcheck was used extensively in the creation of this review.