Proving that a crowdpleaser doesn’t need to pander to succeed, Puzzle was one of the better films I saw at Sundance this year. Featuring a great Kelly Macdonald performance, the Marc Turtletaub-directed drama follows our lead as a housewife who knows little life outside of pleasing her family and husband. One day, she discovers a passion for jigsaw puzzles, and it opens up new doors in a variety of ways. Ahead of a summer release by Sony Classics, the first trailer has now arrived.
I said on my review, “With its methodically tidy structure and a script that, beat for beat, lays the pieces to be a quintessential crowd-pleaser, Puzzle fits together like a perfect, well… you know. Directed by Marc Turtletaub, the powerhouse indie producer behind Little Miss Sunshine, Safety Not Guaranteed, Loving, and more, it’s easy to see the appeal of Oren Moverman’s unchallenging, but no less compassionate script, and he found the perfect actress to carry it. Kelly Macdonald’s Agnes prioritizes every need before her own, mostly those of her husband Louie (David Denman) and their two teenage sons. However, when she sparks a newfound obsession with puzzles, it opens up an unforeseen world, and, as with any heart-warming tale, a path of self-discovery that will change her forever.”
See the trailer below for the film also starring Irrfan Khan.
PUZZLE is a closely observed portrait of Agnes, who has reached her early 40s without ever venturing far from home, family or the tight-knit immigrant community in which she was raised by her widowed father. That begins to change in a quietly dramatic fashion when Agnes receives a jigsaw puzzle as a birthday gift and experiences the heady thrill of not only doing something she enjoys, but being very, very good at it.
Puzzle opens on July 13.