Akeelah and the Bee (2006) on Netflix
Akeelah Anderson, eleven, has a gift for words but finds her South Los Angeles school boring. After winning the school bee, she aims for the national contest, though her mother Tanya objects.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.4/1023,029 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Akeelah Anderson lives in South Los Angeles with her widowed mother Tanya and her three older siblings, and attends Crenshaw Middle School. Her principal, Mr. Welch, pushes her to enter the school spelling bee despite her truancy, and she wins it. At the district bee she befriends Javier Mendez, a competitor from Woodland Hills, and meets Dylan Chiu, a two-time national runner-up whose father demands first place. Dr. Joshua Larabee, a visiting English professor, is impressed by her talent but refuses at first to coach her after an argument about her speech. Akeelah keeps the bees hidden from Tanya, who wants her to concentrate on schoolwork, while the practice takes time away from her friends.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Several studios wanted to turn Larabee's character into a white character, but Atchison felt it was important that Akeelah's mentor be someone who comes from her neighborhood and looks like her.
- Released on DVD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on August 29, 2006, the film became the first DVD offered for sale at Starbucks; by December 2006 American buyers had spent $25,855,396 on 1,512,498 copies.
- CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare average grade of A+, a feat only 52 films managed in the years between 1982 and 2011.
- The film was developed over 10 years by Atchison, who came up with the concept after seeing the 1994 Scripps National Spelling Bee and noting that most of the competitors came from well-off socioeconomic backgrounds.
- To bring authenticity to the film's spelling bee scenes, George Hornedo, who competed in spelling bees in real life, was hired to play contestant Roman and to be an unofficial technical consultant.
- Larabee is based on a real teacher, Robert Larabell, whom Atchison had in Phoenix, Arizona; Atchison said Fishburne made the character a fairly buttoned-up, stoic type, subtly more animated than he had envisioned.
- Jacques Bailly, who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1980 and has been the contest's official pronouncer since 2003, played himself in the film.
