Bee Season (possible spoilers sorry)

so i've been on a richard gere kick lately, watching movies he's been in that I haven't seen (thanks to the search option on my Directv dvr) and i found Bee Season.

the paragraph synopsis on screen said it was essentially about a movie about a man who becomes obsessed with his spelling bee champ daughter to the detrimental exclusion of the rest of his family (son and wife). Sounded kinda interesting. And I loved Akeelah and the Bee - so why not?

It was such a waste of 2 hours!!!!!

There was so much going on. And I see where they were trying to go with it. There were 3 storylines essentially. the man and his daughter...his wife who was going through stuff...and their son who was on a spiritual journey (they were Jewish).

It started out okay I guess. There were some odd parts where the mom had voice overs and it seemed to be veering from the central point of the film. I understand now why it was done (it enhances the mood that she's going crazy etc.) And i really thought the spiritual journey of the son was completely unnecessary. It didn't really add anything to the overall movie and it wasn't a defining moment in the family.

I did like the added layer of Jewish mysticism that coincided with the little girl's ability to spell and essentially have power of words. The dad was a Kabbalah professor and in his obsession with his daughter he tries to get her to find that intersection between words, letters and god. If they had focussed solely on that I think the movie would have been much better. I know the ending of the movie requires the mom subplot, but i think her story would have been better told separately. Maybe having the parents separate in the film would have been enough to motivate the girl in the ending.

All in all i really wasn't a big fan of it. It wasn't what I expected it to be. And what it was trying to be never fully fleshed itself out. A big disappointment imho.