Several other reviewers have commented on the fractured nature of this film. It appears to be a Kabbalistic approach to healing shattered reality, put together as a parable.

I know very little about Kabbalism, so that may be why so many pieces were nonsensical to me. Some things, however, were clear on reflection. Eliza's choice at the end was a redemptive sacrifice. It was a way of turning Saul's obsession back upon itself, so he, when he was brought up short by the apparent disaster, would be accessible once again to his family. The final implications are that she is successful in this, and happy with her choice. Eliza also connects with her mother through the camera, and apparently starts her back on the road to healing.

There are some very nice uses of glass and kaleidoscope imagery as metaphors of shattered personality and lives, particularly for the mother, but for all the characters to some extent.

All of that makes sense, but as a whole, it just doesn't work. The mother has apparently been in a psychotic break for many years, and no one noticed? The son, who seems to have a close relationship with both his father and his sister, responds to the father's extra time with Eliza for the bee with petulant jealousy, and finally runs off to join the Hari Krishnas, without any indication of why he is searching or why the traditions of his family do not work for him. His motivation seems to be nothing more than an exceedingly pretty face.

The daughter, Eliza, is the hardest one to believe of all -- even though she is masterfully represented. In an unusual form of Deus Ex Machina, she restores the shattered family by having paranormal abilities, and then denying those abilities as a sacrifice to redeem the ones she loves. (I suspect this is part of Kabbalistic mysticism, but I don't know.) In one spoken letter, she brings sanity back to her shattered family, reeling in all the fragmented pieces, just as her father had described, and her mother had tried and failed to do. It's a nice idea for a parable, but I found the final answer too pat, the mystical portions glossing over frightful danger, and the pain of the family both believably intense yet unbelievably represented, and I could not believe the solution.

Maybe it is because my own spiritual views are vastly different from the writers, but it was painful to watch, and neither satisfying nor helpful.

If there is a novel that doesn't lend itself for cinematic adaptation, "Bee Season", written by Myla Goldberg, would seem to be the one. It doesn't help that the screen play, as written by the talented Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, doesn't help to clarify for the casual viewer what is going on with the Naumanns of Oakland. In fact, the problem in the novel, as well as with the movie is Miriam, the distant mother who has fled reality and lives in a world of her own.

"Bee Season" co-directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel feels empty because the somber treatment they have given to the movie. The dark cinematography of Giles Nuttgens doesn't help either, but the musical scores of Peter Nasher works well, as a whole.

One enters the Naumann world through the sensitive Eliza, a girl much older and wiser than her 11 years indicate. It is Eliza who senses all that is wrong with her family, as it appears they are falling apart in front of her, and as a little girl, she simply can't do anything at all to bring everyone together. As a way to escape the unhappy home, Eliza immerses herself in the spelling bee contests in which she excels. Not until then, does she get the attention of her father, who supports her newly found talent.

Saul, the religious studies professor, doesn't even come aware about what's wrong with his marriage until it's too late. In fact, he is a man appears to be unable to communicate with the illusive Miriam, a woman who is deeply disturbed by what happened in her own life with the tragedy of her parents death. Saul and Miriam's marriage is over, but they don't do anything to correct the situation. Miriam's problems come to a head when she is taken away and makes Saul confront the many issues that he probably never dealt with before.

Aaron, the older son, is rebelling against his own religion. He needs to experiment with other beliefs because he is at that stage of his life in which he is trying to find out who he is. That is why when he meets Chali, the young Hare Krishna follower, he decides to follow her in his quest for finding a guidance for his life.

The ensemble playing is dominated by the youngest cast member, Flora Cross, who makes a luminous Eliza. Her expressive eyes and her intelligence tells everything about her. Juliette Binoche's Miriam is a puzzle. Richard Gere does what he can with Saul and Max Minghella has some good moments as Aaron. Kate Bosworth is seen briefly as Chali.

"Bee Season" is a difficult film to sit through because it is a dark look into a family falling apart without a safety net. Also, the way the film has been promoted gives a false impression about its content.

In Bee Season, a film by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, a suburban Oakland family discovers meaning and purpose in the Kabbalistic concept of tikkun olam, translated as repairing the world. Adapted by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (Running on Empty) from the novel by Myla Goldberg, the film explores the subject of Jewish mysticism and its effect on a dysfunctional family. Relying on the teachings of Isaac Luria, a 16th century Jewish Kabbalist, Berkeley Professor Saul Naumann (Richard Gere) instructs his students that God created the world by forming vessels of light but, as He poured the light into the vessels, they shattered and became countless shards. Thus, humanity's task is to free and reunite the scattered Light and restore the broken world. Naumann is an intellectual who reaches out to God but cannot connect with his family and they mirror the broken shards rather than the Divine Light.

Saul is close to his musically gifted son Aaron (Max Minghella) with whom he shares a love of music but ignores his 11-year old daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) until her talent for spelling is recognized and she wins local and regional spelling bees. He takes advantage of the opportunity to become closer to her by training her for the national championship and encouraging her to explore the mystical states that he only relates to conceptually. He sees in Eliza the potential to put into practice the teachings of the Kabbalah scholar Abulafia that enlightenment can be achieved through alignment of letters and words. He tells her that "many cultures believe that letters are an expression of a special, powerful energy; that when they combine to make words, they hold all the secrets of the universe." Yet as Eliza and her father delve further into their studies, they forget to look around and see that the people around them are in trouble.

Aaron rejects his father's teachings and turns to Hinduism at the encouragement of a young woman named Chali (Kate Bosworth). He pretends to go on a weekend camping trip but instead dons orange robes and spends the time at a retreat for Hare Krishna followers, much to his father's displeasure. Unfortunately, the story treats his decision to explore a different faith as an adolescent lark rather than a legitimate spiritual quest and we never discover his true reasons for his interest. Meanwhile, Saul's wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche) has flashbacks of a car accident that killed her parents. She takes the phrase Tikkun Olam – "to repair the world" - literally and steals small glittering objects from people's homes in order to reconstruct the world but her own world begins to spiral downward. The sub-plots are not well developed however, and the characters' behavior is insufficiently motivated to be plausible.

The heart of the film lies in the transformation that is taking place within Eliza, dramatized in the spelling bee competitions. Although she has never seen or heard of a particular word before, she is able to visualize it in different ways by concentrating with her eyes closed, depicted on screen by clever special effects. We follow the gifted speller as she moves through one competition after another and marvel at how she is able to remain centered while the world around her is crumbling. The acting is credible and Cross is a promising newcomer but Gere emotes too much personal warmth and "star quality" to be fully convincing as a self-centered, emotionally detached Jewish scholar.

Bee Season has a potent message in so far as it celebrates an individual's use of personal power to alter their experience of reality. The filmmakers, however, fail to clarify what the film is trying to say. Various threads compete for attention: Eliza's personal experiences of God, Saul's Kabbalistic teachings, Aaron's turn to Eastern religion, and Miriam's sickness, but none are sufficiently developed to make a coherent statement. Even the ending that is supposed to bring some resolution leaves us scratching our heads. Bee Season is a well-intentioned film that tackles an important subject but ultimately fails to fully explore the depth of its characters or the true meaning of its message, and I found its suggestion that a family can love God but not each other to be incongruous.