It is nothing special to live a life filled with puzzles and problems waiting to be solved, but when one’s hobby and passion also contain puzzles one finds characters like those presented in Patrick Creadon’s Wordplay (2006). Creadon interviews crossword tournament contestants in the months before the 2005 tournament. While at the tournament, he captures these contestants submerged in the element they thrive in, surrounded by crossword enthusiasts just like them. The puzzlers are truly unique. Their passion for crosswords is obvious to any viewer of the film. They excel at solving puzzles, but their reasons for the obsession greatly differ from one contestant to the next. Al Sanders, Ellen Ripstein, and Jon Delfin all base their obsession on different grounds.
Al Sanders is Wordplay’s underdog. He was in the finals for the past 5 year and placed third each time. Upon his arrive in the finals in 2005, one cannot help but hope that he does not continue his streak of only third place finishes. It is a continuous puzzle as to why he cannot finish as the champion. Sanders is interviewed in his home where the audience also watches him complete an entire puzzle. He comments on growing up as an only child and feeling comfortable in testing situations. Sanders thinks that school and grades are an artificial testing situation because it all leads to a single letter grade on a report card. However, puzzles relate to life. They are full of multiple letters and represent the complications found in real life.
Ellen Ripstein is the loveable dork of the film. Richard Alleva of Commonweal states, “she doesn’t want to confess her hunger for adulation even as it spills out of her every pore.” She gushes about puzzles like a high school crush a teenage girl obsesses over. Ellen’s hobby for puzzles allows her to mingle with others who are also odd. Puzzles give her confidence. She speaks of competing for eighteen year and placing in the finals eleven times. Also, she brags of appearing on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Her puzzles make her unique.
Jon Delfin is a seven-time tournament champ whose relationship with puzzles is the most poetic. He is a pianist who plays sheet music for singers auditioning for plays. In one particular audition he speaks of reharmonizing the music and after finishing the song, the singer turns to him and applauds the beauty of their music together. Steve Vineberg of The Christian Century states, “the mutual appreciation of the two musicians for each other’s skill at filling in the blanks can perhaps be seen as the apotheosis of puzzling.” When handed the music, he must play it instantly. He says it compares to solving miniature puzzles for ninety seconds. His life is full of spaces. He wishes to either fill them with music or letters and comments “give me spaces and I want to fill them in.”
All lives are full of puzzles and Creadon beautifully displays the puzzling lives of a few crossword tournament contestants in Wordplay. He makes one cheer for these crossword nerds and the audience wishes for the same skill. To complete a Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in ten minutes is astounding, but those that can also have other puzzles in their lives just like everyone else.