Every once in a while, an underdog story comes along that inspires you and makes you feel like anything is possible. Your Rudy, your Remember the Titans, your Average Joe’s Gym. Something that takes your spirits, hoists them on its shoulders, and lifts them high into the air. An inspiring tale of an against-all-odds run at the Golden Quill Spelling Bee, taking its place alongside playing for Notre Dame, winning the state title, and beating Globo Gym at their own game as worthy prizes at the end of a hard-fought journey. Maybe there’s a movie like that. But this is not that movie. Sun’s getting high in the sky and the temperatures are rising, but before we can go on our summer holiday, we have to go back for one last day of school. Let’s say some Bad Words.
Bad Words is a 2013 film streaming on Prime Video and starring Jason Bateman (Game Night, Arrested Development) in his directorial debut as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old middle school dropout who enters a series of spelling bees in order to reach the finals. By exploiting a loophole in the rulebook stating that the only requirement to enter is not having completed the 8th grade by a certain date, he manages to squeak into competition after competition among heavy protests by everyone involved: parents, admin, even the child contestants themselves. So we have an Air Bud situation here because nothing in the rulebook says a dog can’t play basketball and this 40-year-old is in a spelling bee with a bunch of tweens. Luckily he’s really good at spelling stuff. His bedside manner could use some work, though; as the title promises, it sports an R rating. So this one isn’t for the kids, even though there are a lot of kids in it.
Guy is everything you don’t want in a protagonist. He’s harsh with people, he’s mean to kids, he picks on insecurities, he’s incredibly rude, incredibly vulgar, a misanthrope, mildly racist (and I mean mildly even by 2013 standards, the year this was released; by today’s standards, he’s downright saintly), and just generally across the board unlikable. To sum up Guy Trilby in one word, it would be, and you know I don’t like to swear in this blog, a doodoohead. Just a real doodoohead. I don’t use that term lightly, but jerk just isn’t strong enough.
So yeah, Guy’s an asshole, board certified, with distinction. But maybe it’s because Arrested Development changed my life, but Jason Bateman somehow manages to make Trilby sympathetic in a way. Sure, he’s a foul-mouthed interloper ruining the spelling bee for dozens of children who have probably had to forfeit significant portions of their childhood to sate their parents’ need for vicarious success, but the way everyone immediately hates him makes you want to root for him. I mean, they didn’t know he was such a doodoohead right off the bat and they didn’t even give him a chance. From the moment the shock of a 40 year old man entering a children’s spelling bee starts to subside, their first conscious reaction is anger and insults thrown his way. They place every obstacle in front of him, do everything they can to get him kicked out. On stage, off stage, within the rules, without them. Sometimes the so-called standup citizens, parents who pat themselves on the back over how right they’re living and how strong their reputation is and administrators who pride themselves on their integrity, get very nasty with Guy and do many of the things they accuse him of. On another day, I would go into what this movie is trying to say about the kind of people to whom appearances are more important than anything else. But this is the last day of school, so nothing too heavy.
Sponsoring Guy is Jenny Widgeon, a reporter for an online news publication. Guy needs the sponsorship to be able to enter the bee. Jenny is played by Kathryn Hahn (Parks & Rec, Agatha All Along) and she is very, very curious about Guy and is paying his way through the spelling bee circuit in addition to sponsoring him. She’s pinning a lot of hope and money on his story being an interesting one and he’s playing it very tight-lipped. Guy is on a crusade and Jenny wants to know why. Her role is pretty tertiary here, but she does well enough with what she has, playing the quirky and at-wits’-end reporter. Hahn is a really talented comic actress, so part of me wishes she had a more significant role to leverage that talent, but the movie doesn’t pay much mind to her character and as such, Jenny’s characterization is pretty thin. Allison Janney (The West Wing) is also criminally underused in the movie, but it’s always a pleasure to see CJ Cregg out in the wild (but I’m not watching Mom; no one can make me). The standout of the supporting cast, though, is young Rohan Chand, who plays fellow spelling bee contestant and actual child Chaitanya Chopra. Now, Chaitanya is pretty much on his own and under a lot of pressure from his parents. Of course, more than just the prestige that comes along with winning the spelling bee and the ability to basically choose your own college are on the table; there’s also a significant cash prize. So for the kids, there’s a ton at stake here. A future and a means to pay for it, with soaring college costs and celebrity kids faking applications, navigating admissions seems like a minefield. For Guy, it’s something else that he cares about. Which you’ll have to watch the movie to find out, I’m not telling you. But Chaitanya is absolutely hilarious as the innocent young kid who makes an inappropriate friend. Of course there’s a good amount of corrupting a minor here, but it only gets properly criminal towards the end of their montage. However, it’s Chaitanya’s role in this film that makes this movie worth writing about. Their relationship is the heart of the movie; it’s what separates this from truly mindless crap like Sausage Party or Movie 43.
Bad Words is not great comedy. It’s not incredibly clever, even though it has its clever moments. It’s not that smart, even though it’s about a smart person. But it’s funny. If you’re the kind of person who can’t help but laugh when someone walks into a screen door or when someone swears around or to kids, then Bad Words will leave you with as many laughs that you feel just a little bad about as I had when watching it. I find people being irreverently foul-mouthed around kids so funny. I don’t know why, but it gets me. Maybe because I can’t do it myself; I do swear quite a bit outside of this blog, but I try not do it arounds kids. So watching someone with absolutely no filter just say and do whatever he wants regardless of who’s around is almost freeing in a way. So when Guy and Chaitanya’s friendship grows, as inappropriate and worrying as it would be to see in real life, in the film it’s really funny. You have to suspend a good amount of disbelief (for example, Chaitanya is 10 and his father has him staying on his own in the hotel because he wants him to grow up, which seems highly unlikely for the type of helicopter parenting that turns a kid into a spelling bee champion), but if you do, it’s very fun. There’s a whiff of Bad Santa to their relationship and it definitely feels like it was a bit of an inspiration for the story structure here. But through all this vulgarity and storm of swears, there’s a wholesomeness to this movie that is somewhat irrepressible. I’m not saying it’ll particularly tug at your heartstrings, but the movie has a warmth to it that’s in complete contrast to Guy’s character. It’s a tightrope walk sure, but Bateman is the one to do it. I don’t think this role could have worked as well with many other actors, but he’s got the right mix of smarmy and aww shucks about him as a person that leaning into the smarmy here works really well.
What we end up with is a movie that feels vaguely like a cross between Bad Santa and Air Bud, with the requisite irreverent comedy and enough wholesomeness to make it worth watching. Bad Words isn’t going to change your life. It’s probably not going to become your favorite movie. It won’t even become your favorite R-rated comedy. It’s not even close to the best R-rated Jason Bateman comedy I want to analyze this summer. But if it’s the kind of raunchy, inappropriate comedy that makes you laugh, then Bad Words is a definitely a good way to spend the scant 89 minute runtime before the kids are home all day everyday. There are definitely gags that would not work today and that I do not endorse, but I did laugh consistently through the film. And sometimes that’s enough. I know I am guiltier than most when it comes to overanalyzing film and TV and looking for the deeper message, but it’s also okay to put your feet up, crack open a nice cold drink on a hot day, and just be entertained for almost an hour and a half. Everybody needs that sometimes and Bad Words provides it.
We’ve also somehow crossed over from May into June, which even though time moving forward has literally happened every day of my life, I’m still surprised when I notice it. That means this month is Pride Month and I would be remiss to let this occasion pass without mentioning it. Happy Pride Month to everyone in the LGBT+ community and especially to everyone for whom the LGBT+ community’s existence is upsetting. Whoever you are, whoever you love, you are valid, wanted, and the world is better with you. This blog is a place where you are welcomed, safe, and valued. In today’s world, just existing can be an act of bravery and I want you to know that I stand with you.
