Bad Words

“The end justifies the mean.”

At the National Golden Quill Spelling Bee, the competitors are children in their early teens, and then there is Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman), a forty-year-old misanthrope who got in through a loophole in the rules. Jason Bateman directs his first feature, and Guy takes the stage against kids half his height. The odd friendship that grows between him and a ten-year-old rival, Chaitanya (Rohan Chand), is what the film is really about.