Synopsis
Dr. Jean Markham returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father's medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the bee keeper brings his mother Lydia into Jean's world.
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Cast
- Anna PaquinJean Markham
- Holliday GraingerLydia Weekes
- Emun ElliottRobert Weekes
- Steven RobertsonJim
- Lauren LyleAnnie Stock
- Gregor SelkirkCharlie Weekes
- Kate DickiePam Stock
- Billy BoydOlder Charlie (voice)
- Euan MasonJohn
- Zara HowellChanting Girl 2
Recommendations
- 70
The Hollywood Reporter
It’s hard to dislike this pleasant, earnest work. - 70
Screen Daily
Tell It To The Bees can seem a little too respectable for its own good but there are moments of pain and heartbreak that rise to the surface, especially in a tense climax that puts the fates of several characters in the balance. - 67
The A.V. Club
What Tell It To The Bees accomplishes for queer romance it abandons with an ending that is committed to unnecessary melancholy. - 63
Movie Nation
But the handsomely-mounted period production has its rewards and the finale manages a nice messiness that undoes some of what’s trite and far-fetched that’s come before it. - 60
Los Angeles Times
Paquin, in one of her strongest performances since The Piano, and especially Grainger (best known for a substantial résumé of British television) shoulder the film’s dramatic burdens with grace and ease. They’re a pleasure to watch. But the unassumingly square and overly familiar film simply isn’t the buzzworthy vehicle their work deserves. - 50
RogerEbert.com
Then there’s a third act that’s so wildly out of left field, it shifts the tone completely. It’s an almost comical departure, but it’s certainly a disappointing one. - 50
ReelViews
Unfortunately, while director AJ Jankel (Super Mario Bros – yes, she’s the one responsible for that) captures aspects of the hostility toward lesbian relationships in that earlier era, she does it without nuance. Her framing of characters is black-and-white and the far-too-pat ending offers an unearned resolution. - 42
The Playlist
It falls flat. There are a variety of reasons — one-note characters, an overly-familiar story arc, a laughable sequence of bee heroism (!). (Alternate title idea: “Secrets and Hives.”) Still, there is the work of Grainger and Paquin.... They make Tell It to the Bees watchable, and are worthy of high praise.
