Puzzle (9/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 102 minutes

R

One of the things I appreciate about being a film critic is that I get to see films I would ordinarily eschew if I were just a paying customer looking for entertainment. For example, I never would have gone to see Maudie last year, but it blew me away.

That’s the way I feel about Puzzle. Would I have any interest in seeing a film about someone who enters a contest for putting together jigsaw puzzles? Never.

But because I was invited to see this at Sony during a slow time for movies, I got to see one of the most enjoyable films of the year.

Directed by Marc Turtletaub and written by Oren Moverman, based on the Argentinian film Rompercabezas (2009) by Natalia Smirnoff, the film stars Irrfan khan and Kelly Macdonald. Agnes (Macdonald) is a married woman in her 40s, has lived her entire life for her family, never thinking about herself. She finds she has a talent for quickly putting together jigsaw puzzles that she basically does alone and keeps to herself. One day she answers an ad for a partner in a jigsaw competition and meets Robert (Khan) and it slowly changes her life. At the dramatic climax, Moverman throws in some of the funniest lines in this touching movie.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant. All should get Oscar® nominations, but that is a pipe dream for a small movie like this (Maudie got no recognition from the Academy and star Sally Hawkins, who gave a bravura performance, was nominated for The Shape of Water instead, which speaks volumes about what The Academy knows about acting).