One contestant is so taciturn, so reserved, so withdrawn that he sometimes appears to be a catatonic schizophrenic, another deflects the pressure of the competition (and also hides his true self from the world) by making funny faces and always talking in a carefully practiced goofy cartoon-character voice, two or three others are so tense, so tightly wired, so obviously suffering from severe anxiety neurosis that one fears they're going to self-destruct when they walk up to the microphone, and while this girl is driven by her own private goblin taskmasters from within, that boy is driven by a domineering father obsessed with winning, yet somehow director Jeff Blitz seems oblivious to the thinly veiled emotional distress revealed in his interviews, blithely presenting the steam boiler of the National Spelling Bee as though it were just some happy little TV game show, and reminding us much too frequently that "only in America" is it possible for eight kids from "such diverse backgrounds" all to achieve their dreams, and as a consequence there is much to dislike in the film's presentation, but the kids themselves are so interesting and engagingly intelligent and free of bitterness that audiences, critics, and yes, even your cynical old grouch of a reviewer can't help but . . . (I blush to admit this) . . . love them.