Elijah Wood

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THE BUMBLEBEE FLIES ANYWAY
(2000)

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The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (2000)
Synopsis

Edward C. Patterson, site owner
Annie Graham, copy editor

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway marked the second Elijah Wood release for the year 2000, the other being the ensemble work Chain of Fools, both films having limited release and are apt to become lost between The Fellowship of the Ring, Ash Wednesday and The Two Towers. Unlike the dark farce of Chain of Fools, Bumblebee is an introspective film dominated by Elijah Wood’s towering talent and ability to intelligently understand his characters and lead an audience to their fountainhead.

The film opens with a montage—a flashback to an auto accident where Bernard Snow (Barney) age seventeen rides a red convertible downhill into a shadowy woman’s figure. There are ambulances, echoes of his mother, doctor’s discussing his condition. When Barney awakes, he lies on a gurney looking up at four operating-table lights.

We learn, as he meets with Dr. Harriman, played by Janeane Garofalo, that Barney has agreed to be part of an experiment where he will not remember any of his past life. He is also told that terminally ill patients, unlike himself populate the facility, and he should remain detached. This detachment he practices by focusing his attention on a rubber ball, which he incessantly bounces on the hallway walls. Then, enter Billy, a young African American kidney disease patient, who confines himself to a wheel chair because "I don't want to walk." Billy introduces Barney to Umberto (Berto) Mazzo, who is rich, anti-social and in the facility with terminal bone cancer.

Barney Snow undergoes his treatment. He is hypnotized by Dr. Croft (research head), does word association and sees the auto crash in a flashback. He gets that flashback again while awake in the adjacent junkyard, where he meets Allie Roon, a brain disorder patient (a child about 8 years old). Barney tells Harriman (who he’s nicknamed Handyman) about his memories of the crash. She tells him to keep those memories. He writes a note to himself—"I am Barney Snow. I was in a car crash—red," and tapes it to his toe so he cannot forget. He begins to doubt his ability to stay detached as he meets new friends. But he tries and earns the nickname, "The Ice Man."

Mazzo makes a deal with Barney. He will let Billy use his Walkman phone if Barney will agree to meet Mazzo’s sister, Cassie, who is visiting from Italy. Barney’s detachment is beginning to wane. He agrees to meet Cassie. It’s a rouse to buffer Mazzo from family intimacy, which he hates. But it serves to put Barney together with someone he likes at first meeting, the beginnings of new memories—a new life. He’s attracted to Cassie. Mazzo also begins to act more friendly to Barney. Barney complains to Dr. Harriman that he is beginning to remember things, but in some fog, with no landscape. Harriman begins to ignore her own predilection to stay detached. She begins to question whether Dr. Croft’s approach is worth the sacrifice of past memories.

After finding out his mother’s name, Barney thinks he’s located her. Cassie drives him to the location, but we learn that Barney’s parents died when he was a child. While with Cassie, Barney becomes protective of both her and Mazzo, when one of Mazzo’s friends acts like a real ass-hole and hypocrite. Barney has assumed a new family onto his blank memory pages.

Mazzo emerges on the bad side of his experiment and tells Barney how he loves to speed in fast cars and longs to do so again. He asks Barney to pull the plug, something Barney cannot do. (He could if he had remained detached). Barney decides to fill in his days by building a car in the Institute’s attic using junkyard parts. This car is more a soapbox derby affair. This focuses him (along with Billy and Allie) on a community project.

Mazzo has a seizure and Cassie (as his identical twin) has a link to him. She shows up at the institute, where Barney helps her cope. As Mazzo recovers, Barney builds this modified soapbox car in the attic. While roaming between the attic and his room, he finds the room where his own experiment took place, discovering the set-up for a red convertible and a projector screen. The car accident was not real. It was staged as part of the experiment to give Barney a memory, built as a wall around his past. Harriman explains that they call it Project Bumblebee because by the laws of nature, bumblebees should not be able to fly, but fly anyway, because their minds tell them otherwise. The experiment is designed to shunt disease using the mind to heal. Barney learns about his parents and also that he had terminal bone cancer (in remission) before he agreed to the experiment. The blanks are gone.

Barney Snow now faces a dilemma. In order to continue the experiment, he needs to renew his agreement; however, he does not want to lose his new memories, now that he has recalled his life. He is symptomatic again, the cancer returning. Cassie is leaving for Italy. He expresses his love for her and extracts a promise that "if the time ever comes that I don’t remember all this, tell me our story." Then, there is Mazzo.

Barney decides to give Mazzo his wish, but not by pulling the plug, but by putting him in the soapbox car (which he now calls The Bumblebee) and give him the thrill of his life down the roof—"a small blaze of glory." He also decides, he will go as well. In the film’s most poignant moment (a drama somewhere between Chekhov and O’Neill), Barney hovers the Bumblebee and Mazzo on the roof trying to give Mazzo hope through death and fighting his own dilemma, to commit suicide or recommit to the experiment. He has a family now and cannot bear placing that family behind some fake memory screen. In the end, he lets Mazzo go alone, choosing life and the experiment, a credit to his own (and Dr. Harriman’s) abandonment of their ability to stay detached. In the end, Cassie seeks Barney at a hospice. He does not remember her (but by his face, we know he’d like to) and we also know that through her promise, he will.

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway is a quiet film filled with subtle acting—Elijah Wood being the master of subtlety, his face and particularly, his eyes a legacy to the days of Silent Films. The script is littered with symbols from the reference to Ice to the rubber ball and the Bumblebee itself. References to Elijah Wood’s previous film Radio Flyer are there, although coincidental; and a forecast to another film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are also there, more indicative of Elijah Wood’s preference in film role choices. Because many of Elijah Wood’s fans prize his James Dean look (and this film abounds with them) and enjoy the chance of seeing Elijah in the shower (his only nude scene in film—although we make assumptions from the mid-drift down), The Bumblebee Flies Anyway has attracted viewers far beyond its DVD release. It is one of this reviewers favorite films.