Word Play

Word Play is a movie which I have trouble attaching an easy modifier to. It isn't so much interesting as it is "interesting" if that kind of emphasis can be conveyed through print. I'm almost entirely sure it can not. The documentary follows the lives of people who enjoy Crossword puzzles.

If you are like me, which is almost assuredly not the case you enjoy the crossword puzzle. I have fond memories of working on a crossword puzzle while sitting at the loading dock desk at the Museum of Art that I used to work at, killing the hours. I've even tried my hand killing time between class working on a crossword. So I'd like to think I am a fan of crosswords. Then I saw this film.

The film focuses on Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times Crossword and his yearly competition. Its form is similar to Spellbound that recent documentary about spelling bees. The key difference being that the latter was about kids and the former is about adults. If the characters in Spellbound were obsessive and a bit odd, you could pass it off as a phase or the result of overbearing parents.

But full grown adults obsessed with crosswords? We've crossed over into a bizarre sub culture that in truth I could have happily lived knowing never existed. The saddest thing about the movie is that it tries to make you relate to these bizarro people. I didn't. I laughed. And this was a clear case of me laughing at them not with them. They are so desperately sad. And when the credits role and a new champion is crowned you just kind of shake your head and pray you never become so obsessed with something so trivial.

But I don't think that was the moral the filmmakers were going for.