Puzzle

Puzzle (2018; written by Oren Moverman and Polly Mann, directed by Marc Turtletaub; based on the film Rompecabezas (2010), written and directed by Natalia Smirnoff)

Puzzle takes place against a background of competitive jigsaw puzzling. While watching it I was struck by the realization that the competitive versions of many activities destroy everything that's enjoyable about them. Competitive eating approaches food as a matter of volume and speed; a voluntary experience further removed from the pleasures of savoring a delicious meal with friends is hard to imagine. Competitive Scrabble is won not by playing long or clever words, but (as Stefan Fatsis' excellent Word Freak (2001) reveals) by memorizing all the permissible two- and three-letter words—and where's the fun in that?

Competitive jigsaw puzzling is a contest to finish in the shortest time. So much for the meditative enjoyment of the interaction of color, pattern, and shape, or in the slow emergence of an image. It is for people for whom the destination is more important than the journey, and for whom the freedom of leisure is oppressive.

Speaking of the freedom of leisure, it is clearly not something that Puzzle's suburban housewife Agnes (a superb Kelly Macdonald) has experienced for many years. As the film opens we see Agnes making painstaking preparations for a birthday party: hanging decorations, inflating balloons, baking a cake. But it's her own birthday that's being celebrated; neither her husband Louie (David Denham) nor her college-aged sons could be bothered to organize the party for her, or even give her a hand. Later, as she's unwrapping presents alone (one thoughtful guest has given her the book Aging with Grace, a moment a less subtle director might have lingered on) she is bemused, but also intrigued, by the gift of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

The next day, after her family is out of the house, she begins working on the puzzle. Suddenly there's a jump cut to the moment when she's placing the final piece. The late-afternoon light tells us that hours have passed; Agnes has been completely unaware of the passage of time. And before the day is over and her family returns she has done the puzzle a second time. When she sits down to do the puzzle she's completely absorbed and utterly focussed, and something in her is deeply satisfied when the final piece is locked in place. The puzzle becomes a daily ritual, and she even begins timing herself to see if she can finish faster. Her response to the puzzle, together with some other clues, make us begin to suspect that Agnes may be somewhere on the very mild end of the autism spectrum.

We also begin to suspect that her pleasure in doing the puzzle has alerted Agnes to the lack of pleasure in the rest of her life. When her son's girlfriend explains that one principle of Buddhism is to recognize that suffering results from the desire for happiness, and so to end our suffering we must stop trying to be happy, Agnes' look tells us how unwelcome this idea is.

Happiness has clearly not been so abundant in Agnes' life that she's willing to give up on the very idea.

Eventually she goes to a Manhattan puzzle store (aptly called Puzzle Mania) in search of more puzzles. She is drawn to two: one a George Romney-style portrait of a mother and child, and the other Goya's voluptuous "Naked Maja." Duty versus pleasure: "I can't decide," she says to the clerk, and takes both.

At the store she sees a notice for a competitive puzzle partner, and contacts him. Robert (Irrfan Khan, who may be most familiar to American viewers from The Lunchbox, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Namesake, among his many other films) is an inventor who has struck it rich. He lives alone in the city and has a lot of time on his hands, which he mainly seems to spend watching disaster footage on the news. (Like Agnes, he seems to find certain repetitive behaviors to be self-soothing.)

Robert introduces Agnes to the competitive puzzle-solving system: separate the pieces by color and by whether they are edge pieces or not. One partner assembles the border while the other works on sections by color. Agnes has followed a much more intuitive process, but as they work together they discover that they are very good as a team. Agnes begins to travel into the city regularly to meet Robert and work on puzzles.

You can imagine a different version of this film in which Agnes' newfound interest in puzzling takes her through a series of competitions ending with a championship victory, and where that victory brings her family to the realization that they've been taking her for granted. Earnest speeches, tearful hugs, upbeat music, fade to credits.

But Puzzle isn't that film, and doesn't want to make it that easy on us. Agnes often behaves in not entirely sympathetic ways: she serves chicken when her son's vegan girlfriend comes over for dinner; she fat-shames Louie with a look of disgust when he's undressing for bed; she lies to her family about Robert and the ever-increasing time they're spending together; and—spoiler alert!—she and Robert become romantically and sexually involved.

Agnes is a clumsy liar, of course, and as she returns home later and later it's obvious to everyone that something is going on. Louie finally asks her straight out if she's having an affair. "We've had sex one time," she tells him, and then goes on to overshare: ". . .and it wasn't good, but it wasn't bad."

When your husband asks you if you're having an affair, he's not asking for a review of your lover. Agnes' response seems unnecessarily hurtful.

—End of spoilers—

So in her pursuit of her own happiness Agnes is not always exactly admirable. And Louie is not an ogre. His great flaw is that he has thought that it's enough for him to work hard to provide for his family. Being concerned about Agnes's emotional needs, or lending a hand with raising their kids or with household chores, was in Louie's view never a part of the bargain. And Agnes seems to have accepted that bargain—until her discovery of puzzling upends her routines and reveals unsuspected capacities.

Puzzle is a thought- and conversation-provoking film which sidesteps most of the ready-made clichés of its genre. At one point Robert says to Agnes, "When you complete a puzzle you know you have made all the right choices." But one of the strengths of Puzzle is that neither Agnes nor we are sure that she is making the right choices. The ending of the film continues this ambiguity, leaving us with the feeling that there is no guarantee that she will find fulfillment. Despite that uncertainty, she's finally gained the strength to make some needed changes in her life, and that newfound strength is what gives us hope for her. No longer focussed solely on her destination, she is trying to find happiness along the way.