Bee Season Review

Miami

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home > arts&culture > Bee Season Review

November 11, 2005 12:48 PM
by [email]

The most beguiling character in Myla Goldberg’s moving novel “Bee Season” is Miriam Naumann, an obsessively neat lawyer with an odd affinity for knickknacks that don’t belong to her.

Juliette Binoche, who plays Miriam in the film adaptation, does a commendable job of capturing her character’s self-imposed isolation, but the power of her performance is hindered by shards of flashbacks that simultaneously confuse the narrative and attempt to give unnecessary meaning to Miriam’s slow decent from sanity.

Screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal emphasizes Miriam’s parents’ death as an explanation for her inexplicable behavior, but does there need to be a concrete reason? When Miriam’s bewildered teenage son, Aaron (Max Minghella), turns to Hinduism, the film is further Hollywoodized. Aaron’s Hindu recruiter Chali, an implicitly asexual male in Goldberg’s book, is replaced by the clearly sexual Kate Bosworth.

But when the movie focuses on Aaron’s eleven-year-old sister Eliza (Flora Cross), it is riveting. An untalented child suddenly turned genius, Eliza begins winning spelling bees, progressing swiftly from classroom contests to a televised national championship in Washington, D.C.

Her success spells salvation for father Saul (Richard Gere), a self-obsessed Judaic studies professor who suddenly becomes convinced his word-wise daughter has the ability to talk to God.

The family dynamics are incredibly well handled by screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mother of Maggie and Jake), who charted similar territory with “Running on Empty,” for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. The Naumann clan looks and feels palpably real, and that’s as much a tribute to Gyllenhaal’s familial sensitivity as it is to the remarkable performances by “Bee Season”’s quartet of leads.

Though Eliza’s story is the focus, the movie rides on Gere’s consuming energy, and he hasn’t been this effective onscreen since “Unfaithful.” Newcomers Minghella (who will be seen in two highly anticipated films, “Art School Confidential” and “Syriana” later this year) and Cross are gifted scene-stealers who, nobly, don’t detract attention from one another.

Binoche has the trickiest role, and she succeeds in making the mother/daughter relationship more touching than it is in the book.

“Bee Season” is helmed by directing team David Siegel and Scott McGehee, who give the film a distinct visual style- letters fly everywhere, arranging themselves around Eliza’s head and growing from a flowered blouse that once belonged to her mother. The score, by Peter Nashel, is a bit melodramatic for my tastes.

Before I recommend this movie- and I do, with reservations- I will say that many people I spoke to following a screening left confused, and I’m not so sure I would have followed the plot easily had I not read the book. That said, “Bee Season” is notable for powerful performances, and a striking emphasis on spiritual searching that I haven’t seen before.

Grade: B
By Jenny S. Halper