Four stars. Rated PG, for no particularly reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.17.20
Think 2002’s Spellbound, but with STEM whiz kids rather than spelling bee champs.
Writer/directors Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s warm-hearted documentary — debuting on Disney+ — profiles nine high school students from around the globe, as they compete for top honors at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).
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| Despite being constrained by very limited resources, Gabriel and Myllena nonetheless made a major medical breakthrough that could help combat the Zika virus. |
The young contestants are a varied group, although united in passion, persistence and — let it be said — jaw-dropping intelligence and ingenuity. Following the Spellbound template, we meet each in turn, and I advise against picking an early favorite; each new candidate is likely to win a place in your heart.
The film actually opens with a previous year’s winner, Jack Andraka, who — as a high school freshman — took the grand prize for inventing a method to possibly detect the early stages of pancreatic and other cancers. His joyous rush to the stage is wholly out of control, his elation absolutely off the chart; we can’t help but laugh.
At a later (calmer) moment, the filmmakers get Jack to briefly explain what we’re about to see, and what it means to young students who are too frequently — and often contemptuously — dismissed as geeks by their peers.
Indeed, a few contenders are total outsiders. Kashfia, impeccably polite and soft-spoken, is a Muslim girl at a massive, sports-obsessed high school in Brookings, S.D. The hallways are lined with display cases: laden with sports trophies, with nary an academic honor to be seen. Worse yet, she’s unable to find a teacher willing to serve as her research advisor, so — and you have to love this — she bonds with the school’s head football coach.
Ivo, a similarly soft-spoken German aeronautical engineering student, has re-designed a century-old, single-wing aircraft that was deemed impractical and abandoned. The young man’s outside-the-box enhancements improved stability and efficiency to a degree that impressed judges at the German National Fair, which in turn qualified him for ISEF, and his first trip to the United States.
West Virginia’s Robbie is an awkward, hopelessly shy misfit with a fondness for flamboyant shirts. Although a math genius and programming savant, he has little use for conventional instruction, and nearly flunked out of algebra. He spends his free time in the attic, building computers with parts scavenged from a local junkyard.
