High School Debate: It shouldn't be rocket science

Seattle is in the midst of the nearly four-week-long Seattle International Film Festival ("SIFF"), the 33rd year of the event that bills itself as the nation's largest film festival. This year, the festival presents 227 feature films, 61 documentaries, and 117 short films, showing in seven theaters around the city.

Last night, I saw "Rocket Science," a dramatic comedy so good that it probably will come back in general release later in the year (it's actually scheduled for "limited release" in August). Centered on high school debate, the film was written and directed by Jeffrey Blitz, the director of the surprise documentary hit about spelling bees, "Spellbound" (2003).

The nerdy hero of the film, played by 16-year-old Canadian actor Reece Daniel Thompson, has a stutter so severe that it renders him virtually speechless. He falls desperately in love with a member of the debate team, a cute but self-centered classmate who offhandedly suggests that he join her on the team. She quickly loses interest in him, when he repeatedly fails to articulate even the first sentence of his presentation in his allotted eight minutes, and ends up after each attempt either locking himself in misery in the janitor's closet, or vomiting in the boys' room. But he remains painfully obsessed with the girl, and with proving himself worthy of her love by succeeding as a debater and going on to the New Jersey state competition.

The audience was thus prepared for a highly unlikely "Rocky"-esque denouement, but it never arrives. Our hero never wins -- or even completes -- a competition, and he never wins the girl. He desperately tries to overcome his speech handicap by sessions with the school's "professional," who admits that speech impediments weren't really his forte, and that it was too bad that the student wasn't hyperactive, a problem that he really knew how to handle.

In a conclusion that was bittersweet for those of us praying for his ultimate triumph, our hero contents himself with smaller victories. He learns to set his presentation to rhyme and to present it, more or less understandably, in a sing-song, based on the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." And he finally succeeds in ordering a pizza, a "P" word that had long been beyond his reach, although "pepperoni" still seems to elude him. His adult self, in a voice over, assures us that these first small steps were only the beginning of the young man's eventual ability to say what he needed to say, by focusing on the content without worrying about how he sounded or without trying to imitate some ideal speaker.

As a child, I never had to contend with a stutter. But my heart overflowed with empathy, nevertheless, because for years I would totally freeze when forced to speak before a group, unless I had detailed notes to follow. (And yet, sitting in class I could debate one-on-one with the teacher for half the class session, to the delighted relief of the rest of the class.) Even in law school moot court, a mandatory part of our first year curriculum, standing and arguing before a three-judge panel caused me to become tongue-tied. A trial attorney was the last thing I thought I'd ever be, or want to be, as a lawyer.

Even now, I'm not a competent extemporaneous speaker, and can occasionally feel myself going into my old teenaged panic mode -- a blank mind, a paralyzed tongue, and a buzzing in my ears -- if called upon to speak formally with no advance warning. But like the young man in "Rocket Science" (speaking isn't rocket science, he notes at the end of the movie, although he's still unable to force the word "science" past his tongue), I eventually learned that when I focus on the importance of what I want to say, and ignore as unimportant the personal impression I think I'm making on my audience while saying it, I can work my way rather smoothly around what is apparently a congenital weakness.

After the film, both the director and the teenaged lead appeared and answered questions from the audience. Blitz said the movie was autobiographical, to some extent. He also had stuttered badly as a boy, and he also had forced himself to suffer horribly as a stutterer by signing up for debate. As "Rocket Science" ends, Blitz permits his teenage alter ego no success in either love or in debate competition, but shows us that the seeds have been planted for him to achieve a better understanding of himself, an understanding that eventually will allow him to overcome or work around his stutter. Blitz wanted to present a realistic picture of an interesting high school boy who does not become a champion, but who achieves real growth as a person. He felt we already had too many "Rocky" films, and that we really didn't need to view another.

He did admit, however, somewhat sheepishly, that in his senior year he and his debate partner won the New Jersey state debate championship.