Review: Wordplay (2006)

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