When I say that Puzzle is not at all what you’d expect from a film about the competitive jigsaw-puzzling community you will surely tick another clichéd critical gag off a too-long list. An utterly winning project that could soften the heart of a rattlesnake, Marc Turtletaub’s drama – adapted from an admired Argentinean film by Natalia Smirnoff – sets Agnes (Kelly Macdonald), an apparently ordinary Connecticut mum, on the road to middle-aged underfulfilment. Some sort of awakening happens when, in no time, she completes a 1,000-piece puzzle she received for that birthday. This actually is what you expected from a film about the competitive jigsaw-puzzling community. Instead the film is almost entirely focused on Agnes’s gradual awakening and her determination to belatedly exercise her underused intelligence.

Source: The Irish Times September 07, 2018 04:03 UTC