'Bee' Minor
Not enough buzz in ambitious but unconvincing 'Bee Season'

As perhaps befits a movie co-directed by two people, Bee Season tells two parallel stories. One is a metaphysical quest in modern dress about the ages-old yearning to communicate with God. The other is a family-in-crisis drama about parents and children splintering apart in the upscale Oakland hills. Surprisingly, directors Scott McGhee and David Siegel (best known for their austere, persuasive thriller The Deep End), are more successful with the flights of mysticism and spirituality in Bee Season. It's the credibility of the family story that most often eludes them.

Adapted by screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mother of Jake and Maggie) from the 2000 novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season tells the story of the Naumann family—one of those apparently picture-perfect movie families you know is too good to be true. Scholarly dad Saul (Richard Gere) is a Hebrew Studies lecturer at the university; he also cooks all the meals and plays the violin. Mom Miriam (Juliette Binoche) is a research scientist. Teenage son Aaron (Max Minghella) goes to Hebrew School and plays the cello; he and his dad play classical duets in the evening like Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.

But the plot revolves around 11-year-old Eliza (a captivating debut by little Flora Cross). Unknown to anyone else in the household, Eliza has a gift for spelling. In competition, she explains to her mom, she closes her eyes so she can "hear the word's voice," which tells her how to "see the word." When she wins her school spelling bee and advances through a series of regional competitions, her family is thrilled.

Her dad, however, is more than thrilled. Not only obsessed with winning, he interprets Eliza's facility with words as something deeply spiritual and takes time off work to coach her with drills and exercises. Soon, he's initiating her into the mysticism of the Kabbalah, hoping she can "reach the ear of God" through words, and thereby "let God flow through" her, in a way he's never been able to do.

Meantime, tensions hinted at beneath the family's perfect veneer turn into pronounced fault lines. Left out of the newfound bond between Saul and Eliza, Aaron rebels where it will hurt his father most; first he takes Communion at a Catholic Church, then falls in with a pretty Hare Krishna (Kate Bosworth) and joins her temple. Miriam begins to wander around the city in a daze, and staying out late at night, as if in retreat from her family. Her sense of alienation is adroitly symbolized by the kaleidoscope she gives Eliza, and the way it fractures normal images through its lens.

But the filmmakers never make a plausible connection between Miriam's problems and Eliza's bees; it's not clear how or why a tragedy in Miriam's distant past estranged her from her husband, or what triggers her sudden meltdown in the present day. Saul is so wrapped up in his quest for God and his perception of family perfection he might not notice the way his wife is moping around the house. But even if he thinks she's "only" having an affair, her late hours should stir up at least some conversation. And it's absolutely nuts that they watch her wander out the door on foot one morning in her pjs and bathrobe, and no one tries to stop her, follow her, or even wonder where she went. For that matter, how likely is it that when Eliza asks Aaron to drive her to her first school spelling bee, he wouldn't even mention to the folks where they were going?

These are relatively minor details, but irritating enough to pull the viewer out of the story time and again. Which is too bad, since Eliza's magical rapport with words is conveyed with charm and imagination, from pencil lead marks on paper that fragment into swirls of infinitesimal letters, to a dove that morphs into a majestic flying creature of folded paper as Eliza spells "origami." The movie is very well-acted (especially by Minghella and Cross) and often engrossing, but the family dynamic should have been more convincing for its wistful, fable-like ending to touch the heart.

BEE SEASON With Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, and Flora Cross. Written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. From the novel by Myla Goldberg. Directed by Scott McGhee and David Siegel. A Fox Searchlight release. Rated PG-13. 104 minutes. (**1/2)

Review published in Good Times, November 23, 2005