be seen as a Kabbalistic figure, desperately trying to come closer to God while remaining oblivious to Eliza's natural gift for connecting to God, and to his family's deepening troubles. Instead of using knowledge (as one does in Kabbalah), Saul uses each of his family members in a (mostly vain) attempt to deepen his own religious sense (an act finally uncovered by Aaron near the film's end). Meanwhile, his wife, Miriam, is caught stealing and is sent to a mental institution. The relationships amongst all members of the family, which were shallow and disconnected to begin with, fall apart. But family healing is implied in the final scene in which Eliza purposely loses the National Spelling Bee, a sacrifice drawing upon the spiritual connection she made the night before. Reception Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 43% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 5.46/10. The consensus reads, "Bee Season is an intelligent, but frustratingly distant and diffuse drama about family dysfunction." Metacritic gives the film as score of 54% based on reviews from 32 critics. As of January 29, 2006, Bee Season had taken a gross of $1,177,082 in the United States, with an opening American weekend of $120,544. Bee Seasons single award nomination was a Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Young Actress nomination for Flora Cross. Home media The DVD was released in the US on April 4, 2006. See also Akeelah and the Bee - a similar film from 2006 List of American films of 2005 References External links 2005 films 2005 drama films American drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s Hebrew-language films Films about dysfunctional families Films about spelling competitions Films based on American novels Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films shot in San Francisco Fox Searchlight Pictures films Regency Enterprises films 2005 multilingual films American multilingual films 2000s American films