Cinerant

Kaballah Bee

Adaptation can be a tricky process.  Sometimes it works brilliantly, sometimes it fails badly, and sometimes you’re just left scratching your head, muttering something like, “Maybe if I’d read the book, I’d get what’s going on.”  Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s Bee Season falls into the later category.

The movie is about a Jewish family whose youngest daughter, Eliza (Flora Cross) turns out to have a Kaballah-led ability to magically spell words.  (Seriously.)  Once the religious professor father (Richard Gere) discovers this, he seems to ignore his teenage son, Aaron (Max Minghella) and his wife Mimi (Juliette Binoche).  As a result, the family becomes more and more fractured until…well, I’m not sure what the until part is.  That’s the major fault of the film.  There are tons of threads started with some fascinating material, but ultimately none of them come anywhere close to tying together.  Most of them are so underdeveloped that you just scratch your head, wondering what screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal was thinking.  

There are some great things about the movie.  Visually, it’s fascinating.  Eliza actually “sees” the words spelled out.  The directors come up with creative and brilliant ways to show this.  Max Minghella (the son of director Anthony Minghella) gives a striking debut performance that promises great things to come.  

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie is highly problematic.  The screenplay is the biggest.  Beyond that however, are miscasting problems.  Gere’s character really needed to be played by a more neebish actor.  He doesn’t bring the intellectual capacity to the role that is necessary.  Binoche seems to flounder a bit in her role, uncertain of how best to play a mother that has endless hidden secrets.  Yet, the biggest problem disappointment is Cross’ Eliza.  The girl ultimately should hold the key to the film, but her performance is too cryptic and stoic to add any insight to the story.  

Maybe you should just read the book, but definitely skip the movie.  Minghella definitely seems to be someone worth watching, but maybe there’ll be more to watch in Syriana.  

And if you wanna learn about Kaballah, ask Madonna or Britney Spears.  

posted by cinegod @ 12:18 AM