Puzzle – first look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

Puz­zle – first look review

21 Jun 2018

Words by Hannah Strong

Woman sitting at a table, focused on an object in front of her, with string lights and other people visible in the background.
Woman sitting at a table, focused on an object in front of her, with string lights and other people visible in the background.
Kel­ly Mac­don­ald plays a techno­phobe with a pen­chant for solv­ing puz­zles in a dra­ma whose pieces don’t quite fit together.

Based on the 2010 Argen­tine film of the same name, Marc Turtletaub’s Puz­zle has a fair­ly sim­ple premise. Agnes, a meek house­wife and techno­phobe liv­ing in Upstate New York, dis­cov­ers she has a tal­ent for jig­saw puz­zles after receiv­ing one for her birth­day. Feel­ing unap­pre­ci­at­ed by her hus­band and sons, she answers an ad placed by eccen­tric inven­tor Robert, who is seek­ing a part­ner for the Nation­al Jig­saw Cham­pi­onships. Yet far from pro­vid­ing any insight into the very real world of com­pet­i­tive puz­zling, the film itself cen­tres on the metaphor­i­cal puz­zle of Agnes herself.

As a char­ac­ter study, the film hinges on the per­for­mance of Kel­ly Mac­don­ald, who plays Agnes as a vul­ner­a­ble woman doing her best. But she alone can’t save the film’s shaky nar­ra­tive, and there’s a sense from start to fin­ish that Agnes is a trag­ic char­ac­ter who needs sav­ing from the mis­er­able hand life has dealt her. All the men in her life are unpleas­ant, with the excep­tion of her eldest son Zig­gy, who shares some of Agnes’ unhap­pi­ness, hav­ing been employed at his father’s auto shop despite hav­ing a secret desire to become a chef. Yet this is an unex­plored side plot – when Agnes remarks He’s a real­ly good cook!” we have to take her word for it, because the only time he’s shown cook­ing on-screen is when he makes the fam­i­ly eggs for breakfast.

Puz­zle is more an exer­cise in telling than show­ing, which is a pity, since the cin­e­matog­ra­phy is par­tic­u­lar­ly strong. A plinky-plonk piano score adds to the sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, and as Agnes is the only char­ac­ter afford­ed any sort of depth, it’s dif­fi­cult to see her hus­band Louie or puz­zle part­ner Robert as any­thing oth­er than thin­ly-sketched outlines.

The film’s attempts to paint a pic­ture of life in mid­dle Amer­i­ca are sim­i­lar­ly uncon­vinc­ing. Agnes is a techno­phobe, sus­pi­cious of the iPhone she’s gift­ed for her birth­day, but there’s nev­er any rea­son giv­en for her aver­sion to mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, or much insight into why she enjoys puz­zling so much, besides a vague hint that she might have an undi­ag­nosed men­tal health condition.

Giv­en Macdonald’s warmth and pres­ence this film real­ly ought to be more charm­ing than it is; there’s just not enough of a sto­ry here. Char­ac­ters make strange deci­sions, and the jig­saw MacGuf­fin is a poor metaphor for try­ing to make order out of chaos.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.