Spellbound

A pleasant way to spend an hour and a half or so. Spends its first section introducing its eight main protagonists one by one (all between 12 and 14 y.o., I think, and from all over the US), so that when the documentary moved to the national final of the spelling bee itself (249 kids in all, I think), I'd already decided which ones I was going for and which I really didn't want to win. Sadly, the one I was barracking for (Angela - the child of Mexican immigrants whose father doesn't even speak English) was the second of them to go; my next favourite, the taciturn misfit Ted had been the first to go. It's a very low-key documentary, but rather charming, and there is a certain drama to watching both the eight to whom we've been introduced and various others squirming on stage, feeling their way through words that they don't know/haven't studied and reacting as the ding of the bell indicates that they've got one wrong and have been eliminated. I don't know why Spellbound appealed to me, or to the many others who've apparently appreciated its charms, but there it is.