‘Speak’ Review: Touching Doc Trails Teens Competing in Public Speaking Contest

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but sports competition documentaries leave me cold. Same for those harrowing true-life tales of mountain climbers, free divers and, worst of all, surfers.

But oratory — now that’s a subject that I can get behind. If you feel similarly about the thrills of eloquent verbal expression, you’ll be enthralled by Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman’s documentary receiving its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Chronicling the efforts of five teenagers competing in the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) Nationals, the “Super Bowl of public speaking,” Speak is enough to give you hope for Generation Z.

The film doesn’t break any new ground stylistically, following the familiar template of profiles of the contestants as they spend months taking part in various speech competitions and preparing for the big one.

Esther, who has already won numerous major awards and is the current national champion in Original Oratory, is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. She teaches Sunday school to kids at the church where her father is a pastor, and her topic is the hypocrisy of the “protect our children” rhetoric that is so much in vogue even while lawmakers fail to pass legislation that might actually protect them, such as stricter gun laws.

Noor lives in rural Texas with her mother and younger brother Noah, who is developmentally disabled and suffers from serious health issues. Her mother Deb teaches at the high school Noor attends and is also her speech coach. Noor spends much of her time caring for Noah, who inspired her topic about the need to advocate for people suffering from similar conditions.

Sam, who is gay, is still coping with the trauma of having been mercilessly cyber-bullied. The experience inspired the topic of his speech about the dangers of social media and the way it exploits personal pain for profit.

Tragedy also plays a part in the topic addressed by Noah, who has Asperger’s Syndrome and whose mother committed suicide several years earlier. Although still devastated by the ramifications of her act, he plans to advocate for the dignity of assisted suicide in his speech, which perplexes his father. “Do you think any of this is to justify mom’s decision?” he gently asks his son.

Mfaz, who emigrated from Sudan to Minnesota with her Muslim parents when she was two years old, has already come in third in a previous Nationals and has no less than 3.4 million TikTok followers. She’s now trying again, with a speech about how the national media represents Muslims.   

Besides scenes of the five competitors working on their speeches and presentations, the film includes snippets of their personal lives, such as Sam’s happy relationship with his boyfriend, a non-binary Native American, and Noor lovingly tending to the show pigs she raises as a hobby. The teenagers’ coaches are often seen as well, carefully instructing them on such things as timing and vocal inflection. “It brings me joy as a person,” one of them movingly says about watching his student’s progress.

It’s a pleasure to watch these talented youngsters dedicate themselves so thoroughly and so passionately to the expression of ideas through words. As the film demonstrates in an opening montage, they’re following in the footsteps of an illustrious bunch of predecessors, including Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, Samuel Alito, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brad Pitt, Paul Rudd, Bruce Springsteen and Josh Gad, who serves as one of the film’s executive producers (a vintage clip of the then-teenage Frozen star delivering his speech confirms that he was hilarious even then).

By the time Speak stirringly gets to the final competition demonstrating that its subjects were well chosen, you’ll be as proud of them as if they were your own children.