Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spelling the Dream’ on Netflix, the Story of Indian-American Kids Who Rock the Scripps Spelling Bee

Netflix documentary Spelling the Dream is a logical follow-up to Spellbound, the 2002 doc capturing the wild, shirtless phenomenon of competitive spelling bees. Spellbound showcased Nupur Lala, the first-ever Indian-American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In the new film, director Sam Rega explores how and why Indian-Americans have dominated the event ever since, focusing on four kids working towards ORTHOGRAPHIC GLORY. So the question is, will we fall in love with these kids, or totally fall in love with these kids? 

SPELLING THE DREAM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The scene: the 2019 Scripps Bee. Spelling words diabolically plucked from the most arcane corners of the English dictionary, eight kids make history with an eight-way tie for first place, winning $50,000 each. Seven of them are Indian-Americans, which isn’t a surprise — kids of this ethnicity have won the Bee 12 years in a row. What gives? What’s the story behind this phenomenon-within-the-phenomenon?

The film profiles Shourav, 14, from Texas and Tejas, 14, from Virginia, both Scripps veterans facing their final year of eligibility; Ashrita, 10, from Massachusetts, a newcomer to the national competition; and Akash, 7, from Maryland, who has the chops to be a future champion. Between chats about personal ethnology and hardcore bee-prep strategies with these youngsters and their families, Rega interviews notable Indian-American scholars and celebs — CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria, comedian Hari Kondabolu, past Scripps winners Lala and Dr. Balu Natarajan among them — about how and why their culture produces so many children who can spell stupid-ass words like “florilegium” and “usaid” on stage in front of many, many people. You won’t be shocked to learn that these kids’ skulls are jammed with the type of awe-inspiring, high-capacity sponge-brains we all probably have, but didn’t quite employ in this manner.

We get to peer over Shourav’s shoulder as he hammers through a computerized word database that’s his “trade secret,” revealed now only because it’s his last-ever Scripps competition. We watch as Ashrita falls down the internet rabbit hole, hopping from one Wikipedia page to the next, learning new words. We see Tejas writing out words on a dry-erase board at home, then tracing letters on his hand with his finger during competitions. We giggle at Akash as he plays to the camera like an adorable little attention hog, learning he started reading and spelling at age two. The movie tracks them through preliminary regional bees, leading up to the 2017 Scripps stage, and we’re privy to the type of bottom-of-the-ninth, two-seconds-on-the-clock, game-on-the-line sweaty tension of any great competition, as kids spell the torturous “causse” to relieved exhalations of glory, and flub the demonic “struldbrug” to the judge’s call-bell ding of death. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The movie directly references Spellbound, of course. Ashrita’s parents reveal that she’s watched the feelgood drama Akeelah and the Bee — in which Keke Palmer plays an 11-year-old who stares down adversity to rock the Scripps — countless times (and you should see it at least once).

Performance Worth Watching: Shourav, “the Michael Jordan of spelling,” brims with justified, swaggering confidence. Tejas has a lucky rock in his pocket, and meditates between bee rounds when he can fit it in. Ashrita infects us all with her uptempo pluckiness. Akash is precocious, a word he could spell upside-down and backwards while asleep. I’m not going to pick a favorite.

Memorable Dialogue: “I think the word just filled up the entire screen.” — Akash plays to the camera before, during and after spelling an utterly preposterous 45-letter word.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Spelling the Dream is — pauses to peruse thesaurus — neat-o! It doesn’t break any new ground structurally or narratively, but it’s inspiring without effort. It’s a simple combination of analytical piece and competition drama that’ll prod your heart and have you shaking your head at the audacity of a spelling bee to force a child to spell “promyshlennik,” and cursing at the word’s audacity to even exist, then cheering when the child actually spells the damn thing. If any of these kids ever loses their perspicacity, it will be a tragedy.

The answers Rega uncovers are semi-revelatory. India is a country of many languages, so being bi- or trilingual is common, and gives them an advantage when it comes to understanding linguistics and etymology. And when many, many Indian-Americans saw faces like theirs in Spellbound, they were inspired to achieve the same. The film briefly touches on the racist rhetoric resulting from a dozen years of Indian-American Scripps Bee dominance, but its focus remains positive; it’s a cheerleading whoop of support for these kids and the many like them. The subtext occasionally bubbles to the surface: Inclusion is huge; inclusion is essential. These are happy stories of immigrants making America more culturally diverse and therefore better, of course. That’s the dream.

Our Call: STREAM IT. You watched 10 hours of Tiger King and 1,000 hours of news recently. Now watch 82 minutes of unapologetic uplift, for cripes’ sake.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Spelling the Dream on Netflix