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Bee Season

Play trailer Poster for Bee Season PG-13 Released Nov 11, 2005 1h 45m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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44% Tomatometer 107 Reviews 35% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
In the Naumann household, 11-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) feels she has little to offer in a family of overachievers. All that changes when she wins the spelling bee, much to the surprise of everyone. Now her father (Richard Gere), a professor of Judaism, devotes attention to her as fanatically as he does to his religious studies. With this dynamic shift, family issues, including those of Eliza's mother (Juliette Binoche) and brother (Max Minghella), come to light.
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Bee Season

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Critics Consensus

Bee Season is an intelligent, but frustratingly distant and diffuse drama about family dysfunction.

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Critics Reviews

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Nell Minow Movie Mom Rated: A- Feb 18, 2012 Full Review Empire Magazine Rated: 2/5 Apr 1, 2006 Full Review Kimberley Jones Austin Chronicle This is second-rate Hallstrm, drama plus whimsy that, when rubbed together, creates not friction and fire, but a nubbing-down of both elements. Rated: 2/5 Dec 6, 2005 Full Review Richard Propes TheIndependentCritic.com A film about these shards of life experience and our often desperate attempts to collect them, assemble them, make sense of them or simply live with them without disruption. Rated: 3.5/4.0 Sep 2, 2020 Full Review Robert Julian Bay Area Reporter Bee Season is an intelligent, mesmerizing, thought-provoking work, so extraordinary in its content and presentation it is hard to believe it ever got made. May 9, 2020 Full Review Chelsea Bain Boston Herald Rated: 2/4 Oct 21, 2006 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Chris P Worth the watch. Good movie, great acting. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/06/25 Full Review KB B It was pretty compelling but there was too much Jewish mysticism spouted off by the Dad. It's an interesting watch but I didn't like the abrupt ending. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 11/30/23 Full Review gerald h what a mess. what a pretentious, self-contented mess. PLUS: this movie has been translated into many other languages to be shown worldwide. the movie´s point is the girl´s willful mistaking of Y and WHY. there is no - absolutely no - connection between Y and WHY in other languages. only in english. so the point can´t be understood in other languages because of the lack of any pronounciation similarities. as example: Y translated to german is YPSILON, and WHY translated to german is WARUM. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Can you spell horrid? I can. B E E S E A S O N. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Possibly the worst Richard Gere movie ever and that's saying something. The movie is not really about spelling bees or mysticism or anything else. Terrible. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member A movie with more promise than it lives up to. Everyone gives fine performances, but the story and character development just don't provide much that's emotionally compelling. Juliette Binoche's character is just confusing and unclear until 2/3 of the way through, which was frustrating as I watched it. And Flora Cross' 11-year old Eliza is not fully believable in her seemingly continual state of pouting and sadness. There doesn't seem to really be anything for her to be that sad about. And the mystical/magical elements in the film just distract from what could have been a more straight forward drama in the hands of a better writer. But the cinematography and editing are interesting as always with films from McGehee and Siegel. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Read all reviews
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Bee Season

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Movie Info

Synopsis In the Naumann household, 11-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) feels she has little to offer in a family of overachievers. All that changes when she wins the spelling bee, much to the surprise of everyone. Now her father (Richard Gere), a professor of Judaism, devotes attention to her as fanatically as he does to his religious studies. With this dynamic shift, family issues, including those of Eliza's mother (Juliette Binoche) and brother (Max Minghella), come to light.
Director
Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Producer
Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa
Screenwriter
Scott McGehee, David Siegel, Naomi Foner
Distributor
Fox
Production Co
Fox Searchlight, Bona Fide Productions, Searchlight Pictures
Rating
PG-13 (Scene of Sensuality|Brief Strong Language|Thematic Elements)
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 11, 2005, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 1, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA)
$1.2M
Runtime
1h 45m
Sound Mix
Surround
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