Word Play: Movie Review

Does anyone really think that professional athletes still play for “the love of the game”? We hear more about exaggerated salary demands and multi-million dollar endorsement deals athletes make than the games themselves. Wordplay presents a refreshing and inspiring look at a group of players who truly do have a love of the game.

The tournament in question is the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT), held every March since 1978, drew over 500 contestants in 2006. To the champion goes the princely sum of $4000 and legend status in the hardcore crossword solvers community.

The Star of Wordplay is the founder of the ACPT and New York Times Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz. Shortz also host a puzzle solving segment on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered: Sunday Edition.

Interspersed between clips of Shortz talking about how he came to be the NY Times’ puzzle master, (he has a bachelor degree in puzzles) talking about what he looks for in a puzzle, and reading some of the hate mail he receives from irate puzzle solvers, the movie follows five contestants as they prepare for the 2005 championship.

Obviously from a filmmakers point of view having the tournament winner be one of your subjects would be the ideal. Director Patrick Creadon chose five of the most talented crossword puzzle solvers in the country to profile for his documentary.

Three are former champions: Trip Payne, a professional puzzle maker; Ellen Ripstein quirky editor and baton twirler; Jon Deflin, professional pianist and winner of seven ACPT championships; Al Sanders, who has made the final three several times, but never finished higher than third; and Tyler Hinman, a twenty-year-old prodigy hoping to become the youngest ACPT champion ever.

If your approach to crosswords is spending ten minutes filling in the obvious three and four letter words before moving onto the comics, you’ll be amazed watching these puzzle whizzes blow through a New York Times crossword puzzle in two minutes.

Noted puzzle creator Merle Reagal demonstrates how he creates puzzles, and we later see the film participants puzzling out the clues to Reagal’s creation.

In the build up to the ACPT, there are interviews with several celebrities and public figures including Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, John Stewart and the Indigo girls, giving their view on what makes the New York Times crossword a standout.

Listening to Bill Clinton make analogy between handling a crisis as president, building on what you know, and solving crosswords, makes one wish that George W. Bush were a crossword puzzle fan.

When the film finally reaches the 2005 tournament, viewers will have a good pretty good notion of who will clash in the finals between the top three solvers. Anyone hoping for some football type trash talking and end zone highly jinks will be sorely disappointed. Competitors at the ACPT are a throw back to another era, when sportsmanship and camaraderie met something. One of the highlights of the ACPT is when the tournament leaders figure out that the judges have made a scoring mistake that puts one of contestants further behind than he should be and press for review. This even though they know that it will jeopardize their own chances to make it into the final three.

Though the subjects’ obsession is well explored, we never quite get the mental process they use to be able to do a complex puzzle that takes the average bloke the better part of the morning in minutes. Over all this is an interesting, feel good documentary that just might change your life.

I hadn’t looked at a crossword puzzle in years before seeing this film. Now, well let’s just say I spend some part of every morning cursing Will Shortz.