“Charming!”
– Michael Agger, The New Yorker
“Entertaining! Their stories are real, and so is their valor. Blitz
interviews the kids in a free-form way that disarms them and brings out their
blithe eccentricities.”
– Peter Rainer, New York Magazine. Click
here to review the entire review
“Jeff Blitz’s shrewd narrative sense and nimble editing (offer)
enough drama, humor and unfiltered nail-biting suspense to put all the thrill-mongering
screenwriters in Hollywood to shame! I can’t think of (a movie) I had
rather see again, even if already know the ending. Almost unbearably exciting.
Excruciating and hilarious! Certainly thrilling. Mr. Blitz’s real achievement,
though – what makes the last 40 minutes of SPELLBOUND not only exciting
but also tremendously moving – is his attention to the contestants and
their families. There is plenty to laugh at here… but the humor is bound
up with enormous sympathy and curiosity. SPELLBOUND (is) a work of art rather
than a piece of sociology.”
– A.O. Scott, New York Times, Click
here to read the entire review
(3 &
1/2 stars) SPELLBOUND is probably the tensest movie
ever in which no one dies, nothing blows up and no state secrets are compromised!
It’s an eclectic group to be sure, at times a journey into serious nerd-dom….A
knuckle-whitening, chairback-gnawing trip into nervous tension… presented
in charming fashion.”
– John Anderson, Newsday
“Wonderful! As suspenseful as the 1945 Hitchcock film of the same name.
A warm sense of character and a deft sense of comic detail. Replete with unexpected
jokes, behavioral quirks, and droll asides, it’s terrific comedy. A
new geek-triumph classic: GLADIATOR for the OED set.”
– Nathan Lee, New York Sun
“Warm, funny and packed with telling details!”
– Mike D’Angelo, Time Out NY
“Indescribably pleasurable!”
– Stephanie Zacharek, Salon. Click
here to read the entire review
Eight teenagers pack their dictionaries and hit the road
for Washington, DC to compete in the annual National Spelling Bee. A very funny
and moving slice of anachronistic Americana is updated by filmmakers Jeff Blitz
and Sean Welch who find out just what kind of kid would obsess over the spelling
of cephalalgia, tergiversate, or logorrhea. We meet them
at home, hunched over endless study lists, hovered over (or ignored) by parents
who range from Angela’s non-English speaking Mexican-born farm couple
to Emily’s well-heeled New Haven professionals, to three separate families
of Indian descent. SPELLBOUND is a movie in love with people, their idiosyncrasies,
their remarkable tenacity, their love of language, learning and the American
dream.
