SPELLBOUND A miniature portrait of America BY PETER KEOUGH

Real life imitates Christopher Guest in Jeff Blitz’s brilliant documentary Spellbound, an account of the agony and the ecstasy of eight diverse adolescent contestants in the 1999 National Spelling Bee. If for no other reason, Blitz should get high grades for his selection of participants, who represent a comprehensive range of races, classes, and geographical areas. Although it draws on the expectations associated with each particular group, like a Guest film at its best, Spellbound transcends prejudices and clichés through comic eccentricity.

Ted from Missouri is a big, slow-talking loner whose older brother has a thing for explosives; you hope he’ll win because you don’t want to see him featured in a sequel to Bowling for Columbine. April’s parents, as she remarks, seem based on the Bunkers in All In the Family: dad, who runs the Easy Street Tavern in Ambler, Pennsylvania, remarks that his life hasn’t been a real success story, and mom wants everyone to "bee happy." Meanwhile, the tiny family dog steals the show by licking mom’s leg.

Taking the Parker Posey role is Emily from Connecticut, who has no love for spelling but does it because it’s something she’s better at than anyone else, unlike riding or singing. And Neil’s parents bring in French- and German-language coaches in addition to drilling him relentlessly on the computer; in his dazed expression you can read the fear that he will never have a girlfriend.

All the film needs is for Fred Willard to show up, but Spellbound offers instead something Guest can’t — the pathos, dignity, and hilarity of real human beings. Angela is the daughter of a Mexican-American rancher: her mastery of the language is for her dad a vindication of the family’s desperate, illegal flight to this country a dozen years before. Ashley has risen from the DC inner city to compete with the more privileged; she’s sustained by the knowledge that disappointment can only make her stronger. Far more than a oddball bit of Americana, the Spelling Bee is a microcosm of the American Dream, and Spellbound is a miniature portrait of America in all its diversity, absurdity, and triumph.