Puzzle

I guess it’s a given that in any activity humans do, there will be some people who compete at it. I knew there were crossword puzzle contests, in fact there’s a lot of them, just as there are contests for Scrabble, Monopoly, and probably Old Maid. I hadn’t known there are jigsaw puzzle contests. We had high hopes for this one, and it starts well, but were sadly disappointed by the ending.

Kelly MacDonald is a housewife so repressed she is hardly even there. Her children and husband take her totally for granted. Hubby loves her, but has no idea how to deal with the fact that she might long for a life outside the house. She is given a jigsaw puzzle, and discovers that she is good at putting it together. Damn good at it, in fact. She travels into town to buy more, and meets a former puzzle champion, Irrfan Khan, who is looking for a partner. He wants to take her to Belgium for the World Championship. But she hasn’t even had the guts to tell her family about her new passion and skill. One thing leads to another, and she has an affair with the puzzler. When it all comes out, she is faced with a choice, but we didn’t think it was as dire a choice as between her family and her puzzling. The choice she did make left us quite frustrated, and even angry with her. It didn’t have to be that way. Too bad.