Well yesterday I covered the competitive the world of Crossword Puzzles and now we get to peer into the even insaner world of competitive Scrabble. Yes, the board game that forces you to know how to spell actual words and not slang words in order to score the most points has a huge tournament every year and we get to immerse ourselves in the documentary. So prepare your Scrabble board, remember all the legal 3 letter words you can play and make sure you use those triple letter/word scores wisely. It’s time to Scrabble.
The directorial debut of filmmakers Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo, Word Wars: Tiles and Tribulations on the Scrabble Circuit is a humorous documentary look at the culture surrounding the National Scrabble Tournament. Focusing on four players in particular, the film details the intense competitions that lead up to the finals in San Diego, where each of the competitors hopes to take home the 25,000-dollar prize. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
Honestly, I never knew that there were some sort of competitive Scrabble games that take place in parks like Chess matches do in movies. I mean, really? I am going to start competitive Monopoly games at my local park where I become known simply as “Land Lord”. It’s a dream for sure, but anyways, much like Wordplay this is a documentary into a deep culture where you are only as good as your knowledge of words and strategic board placement. Also you have to have good tiles in order to win.
Scrabble always struck me as a mix between playing poker, chess and obviously a spelling bee. Poker in the sense that you need good cards to perform and in this case, tiles will make or break you. Then Chess for the obvious notion that you are planning out your words in advance with what you got. Then spelling bee, which is a no brainer. In this documentary, you are witnessing extraordinary strategy and words that I wouldn’t even think of playing.
Like any documentary, there have to be subjects to follow, which we get plenty of. From a militaristic player who demands for ebonics to be used in the game, a man with a GI tract problem, a stand up comic, and even more eclectic, regular players who are phenomenal at word plays. When it gets down to the finals of the Scrabble tournament, it gets intense, I mean really intense considering every pull of tiles from the bag is basically a roulette game that could determine the fate of the people playing.
Overall, if you enjoyed Wordplay or even like to play Scrabble in a non-competitive fashion, this is an engaging documentary that is enjoyable because of the subject matter. You get just a closer peek under the veneer of a simple board game that is more grueling at making you spell words properly than grade school ever did.
