The Bee Season
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A 20th Century Fox release of a Fox Searchlight Pictures and Regency Enterprises presentation of a Bona Fide production. Produced by Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa. Executive producers, Arnon Milchan, Peggy Rajski, Mark Romanek. Directed by Scott McGehee, David Siegel.
Screenplay, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, based on the novel by
Myla Goldberg. Rating: PG-13 Column Rating: √ Must See Regardless Children’s Movie? Definitely See with your children, if possible) Bee Season is an charming film, on the big or small screen! It is an introspective, non-violent story, comfortably viewed with children. Skillfully adapted, from Myla Goldberg’s novel, by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, the script offers an unadorned, straightforward look at family strength and religious beliefs. Goldberg’s insights contribute to our catalog of relationship models. In her story, she explores our minimal abilities to spot psychological bondage. However well intentioned by the stronger personality, often a parent, their intense need to control everyone around them is oppressive. Equally inspired is her fresh portrayal, of the tricky and usually obscure experience of spirituality. As a viewer, you will be engaged, as the philosophies and events progress to a surprising, and satisfying climax. Bee Season’s ideas, blended in two sub-plots unfolding simultaneously, are rather captivating. Young Eliza Naumann (Flora Cross) is at the center of both stories: Cosmic Mysteries and family dynamics. Eliza’s mystical responses to reality catch her father’s attention when presented with her trophy won at the citywide Spelling Bee. Initially, the film details two stories with montages alternating between Eliza’s innocently begun, but escalating celebrity, and of the Naumann’s home life, a common enough existence of work, schooling, studies, daily chores and routine family interactions. Cinematic clues of how Eliza sees the world are wonderful, not so much for the CGI effects, as for the illusory concepts of mysticism they depict. Her father, Saul (Richard Gere) glows with familial exuberance at home, in the kitchen cooking meals, in his den, after dinner, playing his violin with his son Aaron (Max Minghella.) He treasures his son and their time spent playing music together. Aaron is a fairly well adjusted teenager, in part because of a lifetime in Saul’s doting limelight. Like many siblings, as Eliza has no particular ‘talent’ with which to capture her father’s attention—she calmly lives in the shadows of her family’s daily life. Saul, is loving and attentive to his quietly contemplative daughter, albeit in a distancing way. He has no better rapport with or understanding of Eliza than he has of his scientist wife Miriam (Juliett Binoche.) While affectionately calling her ‘Meem,’ he appears to ‘manage’ Meem’s often imperceptible confusion with the same pleasant, yet bewildering control techniques used on his children and students. At first blush, Saul’s contentment with himself lends a superficial facade to the Naumann family tranquility. Increasingly apparent is his passionate control of their home environment. On campus, Saul is Dr. Naumann, a professor of theology. His lectures include his take on the paradigm of God’s love, expressed in our cosmic heritage, as Light. Key to this story, Saul’s philosophical lectures attempt a correlation of the scientific view of the Big Bang and the spiritual link some see as God’s Light shattering into ‘shards,’ dispersed throughout the Cosmos. It is an evocative metaphor, and one taken literally by Eliza, as well as Meem. Saul had come to grips with his demons as a young, wanna-be mystic. While earning his doctorate, he acknowledged his own perceived inadequacies by instead documenting, in his thesis, how one might go about understanding a mystical connection to the Universe. It is an annotated primer for becoming a mystic. The characters of Saul, Meem and Aaron easily emerge. Both Saul and Meem bring their separate ideologies and neuroses to their parenting efforts. Eliza is not as uncomplicated. As she wins each Spelling Bee, her contemplative stillness allows her to see a disturbing trend towards imbalance in the family routines. Saul, devoting most of his focus to his daughter now, is unable to really see Meem and Aaron, or their frustrated reactions, as they struggle with his drifting attentions. This family shift is inevitable, as Eliza’s mystical abilities previously went undetected. Eliza innocently sees words, experiences them readily, as she does life in general. She copes with life in a mild form of mystical composure. Her special skills entrance her father, as he mentors her on her way up the contest rungs of the Spelling Bee season. He facilitates Eliza’s understanding of her own spiritual gift, using his doctoral thesis as a textbook. Eliza, fixated on somehow making atonement for her celebrity, begins seeking how to heal the family dysfunction. She understands the theory about working in the Light as a gift of ‘talking to God.’ As she evaluates the concept intellectually, she expands it to ‘gaining the ear of ‘God.’ She begins to believe her view is a more opportune method to undo what she has done. Saul, in a fugue of his own fatherly conceit at having a mystic for a daughter, is missing the irony of using powerful spiritual mysteries to aid Eliza on, of all things, a triumphant journey of contest championships. The separate experiences of the Naumann family coalesce in a story to which everyone responds in their own way. Conversations after a viewing of Bee Season are lively. Richard Gere’s portrayal of Saul brings genuineness to the character. Juliette Binoche gives a rather haunting performance as the emotionally damaged Meem. The show stealing young actors, Max Minghella and Flora Cross, are a delight, their performances refined by Directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, bringing strong elements to the portrayal of young people coping with powerful family issues. Bee Season is twelve-year-old, French-speaking Flora Cross’s filmic debut. Apparently on his way, Max Minghella can also be seen in the currently releasing political thriller, Syriana. He has been cast as the lead in Art School Confidential, a comedic drama now in production, and scheduled out in theatres Spring of 2006. Both young people’s careers bear watching.
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