Wordplay Review
By David Kempler
Clinton and Dole Agree
Joining the ever-growing group of documentaries about competitions not quite at the level of a heavyweight prizefight, Super Bowl, World Cup, or World Series, comes "Wordplay", the story of the heated competition at the American championship of crossword puzzles.
Mecca for the contestants is the Marriott Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut, where once a year the top male and female enigmatologists (puzzle solvers) get together and do battle until only three are left standing. Then comes the grand finale when the three leaders to that point are brought up on stage to solve the final puzzle at their own easels. Whoever finishes first, without a mistake, wins. What they win is not important as far as monetary rewards or statues. It's just about winning.
We don't just watch the "nerdy" enigmatologists (and I mean that in the nicest way). We also get to see some folks that we recognize explaining to us their love of crossword puzzles, and to be specific, The New York Times Crossword Puzzle, the acknowledged king of them all. There's Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Jon Stewart, Mike Mussina, The Indigo Girls and Ken Burns raving about this pastime and you can tell they really mean it. The star of the show is Will Shortz, the editor of The New York Times Crossword Puzzle. It was Shortz who came up with the idea of a crossword puzzle tournament 28 years ago. Every year since then the tournament has been held in Stamford and it is going stronger than ever.
Everyone in this film seems like an incredibly nice person. Certainly the director, Patrick Creadon, may be trying to paint everyone in a wonderful light but I don't think so. They are just good folks who also happen to be exceedingly bright, that share a love of doing crossword puzzles.
Besides all of the good feelings here there is a real competition and these folks want to win as much as a politician wants to win an election and a baseball pitcher wants to win a game. The three finalists here are the old and wily veteran, the young but at the same time former champion, and the 20-year-old rookie. If it was scripted it couldn't have turned out better. I admit that I am also an avid enigmatologist, minus the talent, so I'm a bit biased here but it's not often you can combine good feelings and heated competition all in one place at one time like we have here. Go see "Wordplay" and remember to bring a number 2 pencil.
