As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This film is about a family whose lives are thrown into a turmoil after the unexpected success of the young daughter at a spelling bee competition."Bee Season" has the potential to be an engaging and touching drama. Though it is beautifully shot and the scenes are well composed, the plot needs a lot more explanation and development. I find the family's life before the spelling bee competition very underdeveloped, which makes me unable to appreciate the extent of the change before and after the competition. The reason and progress of Miriam's mental deterioration is also poorly explained. It leaves me with so many questions about why she acts the way she does or feels the way she does. "Bee Season" may be an interesting drama, but it fails to live up to its full potential

I can only take comfort in the fact that I borrowed the movie from the public library. My wife and I were hoping the time invested would pay off, but the plot never really develops. Anyone who sees anything in this is REALLY stretching for meaning.There is little to establish the intent of the characters and even less to explain their actions. By the time you're half way in you realize that nothing has really happened. However, having spent that much time you assume there will be a significant plot twist by the time the film resolves, but it just never does so.Perhaps the problem is my own lack of "spiritual enlightenment". I don't know.

This may be a movie about the various ways people search for meaning (and in a very heavy handed way search for God of all things - yuck), but the way in which it is done here is yawn inducing to say the least. Sentiments and poignant sentences are repeatedly hammered into the viewers like a Hare Krishna mantra - literally... and the pace is so pedestrian that we could see the same movie in half the time without losing anything. Im guessing the movie wants us to be put in a trance somehow and with all the long winded "Bee's", kaleidoscopic imagery etc, it might succeed - but that is not why I choose to see a movie. I would rather prefer a view of a beautiful scenery, a fantastic concert or another awe inspiring experience. Very few movies can be trance inducing and good (2001 and Once Upon A time In The West come to mind) - this just doesn't work.Yes there are some clever CGI to illustrate the "magical" powers of the child prodigy (obviously inspired by the similar scenes in "A Beautiful Mind, where Russel Crowe has visions from wherever), but what are we supposed to believe - That the child can talk to God ??? Seriously...If this is what passes for a dysfunctional family, then intellectual families such as this really don't have as many problems as they think. The mother should obviously have been to a therapist way back when her parents were killed, but other than that, they really seem like a pretty good family.

Bee Season is not exactly what I expected. I pictured a heart warming film about trials and tribulations and ultimate success. Instead, this film was a walk on the eerie side of mysticism and emotional problems that haunt everyday people. The daughter hears the words in her spelling bees talk to her and can spell words she never even heard before. What's with that? The father takes her under his wing and teachers her kabalistic stuff of how the words she hears can connect her with God. The mother is a kleptomaniac looking to catch the light in stolen knick-knacks so she can talk with her dead parents, or at least come to grips with their deaths 30 years before. The son gets involved in hari christnas because of a pretty girl. The father is almost oblivious to his families impending disaster. An interesting little film that is well made and well acted, but not an uplifting adventure of any kind.