From Oprah Winfrey to Jordan Peele, there has been a long history of great artists, entertainers, policymakers, and more who have participated in Speech & Debate. Odds are, you’re more familiar with the second part of that (at least I was, in no small part due to the criminally underrated teen rom-com Candy Jar), but Speak. is here to give you a crash course on the former, particularly a component called Original Oratory, wherein high school students write 10-minute speeches on the topic of their choice and perform them in front of judges.
What is ‘Speak.’ About?

Image via Sundance

Speak. sits firmly into a genre I like to call the “talented teen documentary.” It happens to be one of my favorite genres, with everything from Science Fair to Girls State fitting the bill. A good talented teen documentary will probably make you have a small existential crisis about where you are in your life, but a great talented teen documentary will motivate you to push yourself to your limits and find out what you’re capable of.
Speak. certainly shows its subjects leaving their comfort zone and testing their mental and physical limits in the nine months leading up to the national Speech & Debate championship — particularly on grueling competition days, wherein they perform their deeply vulnerable and emotional speeches numerous times for numerous people. Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman’s direction (as well as Tiexiera and Delaney Lynch’s editing) truly makes these tournaments feel like a sport, building palpable anxiety and anticipation as our subjects wait to see if they’ve advanced to the next round or not. There are plot twists and surprises galore regarding who’s considered the frontrunner, with it all culminating in watching the top six in the US go head-to-head in the finals in Iowa.
‘Speak.’s Five Subjects Are Fascinating and Inspiring

Image via Sundance

Speak. follows five high school students in three different states: Florida, Minnesota, and Texas. There’s Esther, a preacher’s daughter of Nigerian immigrants and the two-time defending Original Oratory national champion, who is attempting to do something that’s never been done before by winning a third title. Next, we have Mfaz, a Muslim student who’s new to the activity and has over three million TikTok followers, who Esther admits to seeing as her biggest threat. Another rising star — albeit a slightly more surprising one, even to himself — is Sam, a queer young man who is a naturally gifted performer and comedian. Finally, we have the underdogs: Noor, who shows pigs and is using her speech to raise awareness about people with disabilities like her brother, and Noah, who is struggling with his mother’s recent suicide and an autism diagnosis.
Tiexiera and Mossman’s choices regarding who to showcase are excellent ones, as these five students each come from different backgrounds and experience levels but are compelling in their own way. In fact, each subject is so rich and nuanced that any single one of them could carry the documentary as its sole focus. They are also damn good at what they do, with the directors smartly putting in clips of them performing their speeches into the documentary so we can get a firsthand look at the different speaking styles and topics they’ve chosen. It’s immediately easy to see why Esther, Mfaz, and Sam do so well — Esther is precise and powerful, Mfaz speaks with intense passion and emotion, and Sam is theatrical with charming, disarming comedic delivery. Seeing Noor and Noah’s struggles, however, is just as moving. Everyone can relate to Noor’s frustration at getting into her own head and Noah’s pushing himself to put himself in a position that might not be the healthiest for him.
While Esther emerges as a clear leader and captain to her team — and is treated as something of a celebrity when she gets to nationals — I do wish we would have gotten more interaction between the students to further feel the community aspect the film hints at, particularly with Noah’s story. Though seeing the five of them interact would likely be inorganic and inauthentic to how these competitions work, more crossover could make the film more satisfying. Even highlighting a couple of students from the same school could help bring a stronger sense of connection and add a necessary texture to these students that are absent at the moment.
‘Speak.’ Keeps Things Straightforward and Surface-Level In Certain Regards

Image by Jovelle Tamayo via Sundance Institute

While the friendship component may be lacking, the film does do a nice job of highlighting the students’ bonds with their coaches. It’s beautiful to see the pride and awe on Esther and Mfaz’s instructors’ faces, as well as how supportive Noor’s mom-slash-coach is of her, though this does raise a discrepancy the film could have benefitted from diving into more. It seems safe to assume that Esther and Mfaz’s schools have top-tier Speech & Debate programs from the caliber of coaches and even the shots of their schools, whereas Noor speaks openly about the lack of resources for her own team, having to fundraise themselves. Not directly examining the way that finances and opportunities may affect a subject’s success feels like an oversight and keeps the documentary from going as deep as it could and maybe should. This isn’t to say Esther and Mfaz aren’t incredible and extremely deserving of their wins — they absolutely are — but as an audience, we’re kept in the dark about the nitty-gritty logistics of how they got there.
We see Esther being coached a bit at the beginning of the documentary, and getting a glimpse of how the magic happens is fascinating. It’s a highly intentional art, with every breath and emphasis mapped out. With its specific cadence and rhythms, it ends up feeling like a combination of watching a monologue and spoken word poetry being performed. While seeing these children emotionally prepare is effective, I do wish we would have been privy to a bit more of this technique aspect as well, as it adds welcome context for the uninitiated.
Just as The Queen’s Gambit got people super into chess for a minute there, my hope is that this documentary inspires people to seek out some Original Oratory performances. Ted Talks are already all the rage, after all, and these really aren’t so different. The intelligence and passion of these teens is undeniable, and the fact they’re speaking up about complex topics in a nuanced way — from weaponized “protect the children” rhetoric to Palestine — gives me hope for the future.

Speak.

Speak. is a straightforward but effective documentary about five inspiring teens competing in an original speech competition.

Release Date

January 23, 2025

Runtime

102 Minutes

Director

Guy Mossman, Jennifer Tiexiera

Pros & Cons

Each subject in the documentary has a compelling message and arc, and they?re all easy to root for.
Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman manage to invest us from the get-go and create a real sense of suspense as to who?s going to win the national tournament.
The teens? speeches deftly explore important issues, which will likely either teach you something or have you looking at a subject in a new way.

The film doesn?t showcase the subjects interacting with each other or their peers much, which makes something feel like it’s missing.
The documentary doesn?t go deep enough into exploring how varying resource levels can contribute to a competitor?s success in this world.