Sweaty hands, dry throat, pounding heart: these are the classic symptoms experienced by a Scripps National Spelling Bee competitor. Each competitor is reaching for that title — Spelling Bee Champion — while knowing that just one misused letter means their dreams will come tumbling down.

Jeffrey Blitz’s 2002 documentary, Spellbound, follows eight pre-teens on an expedition to the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. This is a great opportunity to enter the lives and minds of the competitors, to see their different studying techniques, their different backgrounds and ethnicity, all of which affects their mindset for the competition. One returning competitor believes that, unlike India, America gives second chances.

Parental involvement is displayed throughout the film. While two parents immigrated to America to give their daughter the opportunity to learn, another hired an array of international speaking teachers for their son. How parents support their children is just one of the many factors that explain why these kids spell competitively. One speller thought it would be “funny to win”; another thought of the Spelling Bee as a war zone. Each contestant had a different motivation. A contestant named Emily explained that it was her competitiveness that kept her coming back to the Bee.

It was said that competitor Neil’s grandfather had hired 1,000 men to chant and pray for him to win, and if he did win, the grandfather would pay to feed 5,000 hungry people in India.

Not only do we get the chance to see the kids at the competition but also in their homes. As said in the film, these kids are not stereotypical nerds. They have friends and family that they like to spend time with, and some might even be considered jocks.

By the end of the movie, compared to the eight kids, I began to feel like the dumbest person on the planet. Still, director Blitz did a fantastic job of portraying each speller as a regular kid. I found each kid so relatable that I could feel their passion and nervousness and I sensed the relief that Ashley felt when she spelled “lycanthrope” correctly. This documentary takes you on a roller coaster of emotions; you want to weep for the girl who goes home crying and cheer for the girl who leaves the stage bowing.

Even though I am not generally a fan of documentaries, Spellbound was an entertaining exploration of the lives of spelling bee competitors. I laughed and cheered for these kids. Despite the excellence of the content, the audio and visual were of poor quality, as well as the repetitive dialogue. Balancing out the positive and negative aspects, I feel the film deserved three and a half stars out of five, but I highly recommend it to lovers of funny, inspirational movies.