Wordplay reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 3 out of 4
Director: Patrick Creadon Screenplay: Patrick Creadon, Christine O'Malley MPAA Classification: PG (some language and mild thematic elements)
Isn't this documentary craze great? Ever since Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins blew the doors wide open and proved the marketability of documentaries, the wealth of wide release docs has increased tenfold. And no longer do you have to carry around a bottle of Prozac to the theatre with you, bracing for a tear-inducing, earth shattering reality check. Documentaries can now be light and bubbly summer distractions, offering up a nice alternative to the plastic-wrap sheen of romantic comedies or the eardrum-piercing action flicks. It's what I like to call "Documentary Lite": scrumptious bites of reality that you can chew on with amusement and delight. Wordplay is the most recent of these, bouncing around the life of New York Times Crossword editor Will Shortz and his trusty Puzzle-Head fans competing in the 28th annual National Crossword Competition.
It's in the same vein as Murderball and Spellbound, zeroing in on a little known niche of American Culture and documenting the lives of the obsessed beings involved. The film is balanced nicely by writers Patrick Creadon (also directing) and Christine O'Malley. They lead up to the competition with mini-biographies of the most competitive contestants such as Al Sanders, a husband and father from Ft. Collins, Colorado whose otherwise humble life is pierced only by his two minute record for a crossword's completion. He's climbed his way to the finals on multiple occasions, but dawdled in third place every time. There's also Ellen Ripstein, a gloriously geeky puzzle-head whose quick-draw crossword skills bought her a previous championship at the Stamford Marriot where the event is held.
Also making their appearances are celebrity crossword aficionados like Jon Stewart, who's so confident of his puzzling skills that he's gone beyond putting pen to crossword, and threatens now to use only a glue stick. There are also cameos by Bill Clinton, Mike Mussina, Ken Burns and two of the Indigo Girls. They all explain their strategies and their love for the New York Times puzzle, which is, apparently, the crème de la crème of the crosswording world. An interesting scene puts the same puzzle in front of all the celebrities, letting us watch as they weigh out the same clue and each find the answer to be ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). A moment of panic sparks when Clinton is hung up briefly on the overtly political clue, especially since Jon Stewart solved it in half the time.
Holding all these strings together is Will Shortz, leading us into his office at the Times and spelling out the daily procedure for inventing the finest puzzles in the nation. We also follow Merl Reagle, another crossword constructor, and watch as he builds a puzzle from scratch, explaining some of the history behind the tradition. As Merl drives to his home, he passes Dunkin Donuts: "You know, if you take the first letter of 'Dunkin'' and move it to the end, it becomes Unkind Donuts." He continues to re-arrange the letters in Noah' s Arc to read "Oh No, a Shark (o no a sharc)." The competition itself-the third act of the film-holds its water with drama. Creadon treats the material like an event televised by ESPN, creating scoreboards to monitor our contestants' standings and progression as they navigate their way through seven timed crosswords and a cleverly balanced scoring system.
I've never been great at crosswords, picking one up from my local paper occasionally and never daring to brave the New York Times gauntlet of coded word trickery. But Wordplay brought me into the New York Times fray. The morning after the screening I unwrapped my Times and fingered through the Arts section. I'll admit now, with shame tinged with a blush of hope for improvement, that I didn't finish that Wednesday crossword. I didn't even solve half of it. But I did it and tomorrow I'll do it again. And that's the satisfaction behind Wordplay and the other Doc Lites out there. Documentaries should first intrigue us, and then involve us. Wordplay holds our hand through this niche of puzzling culture and shows us its glory along with some of its realities. And even though my cat could do a better job with the Saturday crossword, I'll try and fail at it anyway.
-www.samseescinema.com
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