Puzzle 2018

     Agnes is married and she has two young adult sons.  Agnes only thinks about her family and not herself.  In the opening scenes there is a birthday party at her house.  Agnes has made the cake and did everything else for her own party.  She gets a 1000 piece puzzle set as a gift.  She puts the puzzle together very quickly and she does it several times.  She sees a notice that someone she doesn’t know is seeking a puzzle partner for a puzzle completion.  She has received a phone for her birthday but she’s planning only using it for emergencies.  She sent a text to offer to be a puzzle partner.  She takes the train to New York and then a cab to the address she has.  She gets out of the cab early and walks because she doesn’t have enough money to go further in the cab.  Robert is the person she has come to see and he tells her the details about the completion and the prize.  He says they will need to practice together regularly to learn to work quickly with each other.  Robert is surprised that Agnes doesn’t sort the pieces by color and she is very fast in solving them.  Agnes tells her husband that her aunt has broken her leg and she needs help.  This is true but her husband doesn’t think it is necessary for Agnes to use her time to help the aunt??

     This is surprisingly good and I really liked this movie.  Agnes learns from Robert more than how to quickly do puzzles.  He points out that she usually never does anything for herself?  Her two sons also point that out to her.  Agnes hasn’t thought about this when she looks at her life??  Her husband and sons don’t do anything around the home.  Louie has a car repair shop and both sons work there.  Gabe is fine with this but Ziggy tells Agnes that he hates working at the shop!!  Agnes helps Louie with the invoices at the shop along with all her other work.  5* (I really liked this movie) 

103 min, Drama directed by Marc Turtle Taub and witten by Polly Mann Natalia Smirnoff and Oren Moverman with Kelly Macdonald, David Denman, Irrfan Khan, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Austin Abrams, Bubba Weiler, Helen Coxe, Mandela Bellamy, Liv Hewson, Lori Hammel, Lawrence Arnacio, Sebastian Chacon, Barry Godin, Matthew Shifrin, Myrna Cabello, Audire Neenan Mhari Sandoval.

Note:  Imdb 6.7 out of 10 with 5473 reviews, Roger Ebert 3* Christy Lemire, Rotten Tomatoes 83% with 130 critics 76% audience with 704 user ratings, The Guardian 3* out of 5* Mike McCahill, Common Sense Media Michael Ordona, 5*, age 15+, 4* positive, 4* role models, 2* sex, 4* language, 2* drinking, drugs & smoking, The Globe and Mail 3* out of 4* Kate Taylor, Amazon 4.2* out of 5* with 131 reviews, Letterboxd 3.3* out of 5*, Metacritic 66 out of 100 with 36 critics (26 positive, 10 mixed, 0 negative) 7.6 out of 10 with 19 ratings (14 positive, 5 mixed, 0 negative)

Special Note:  Kelly MacDonald was in a supporting role in No Country for Old Men 2007 and Irrfan Khan was in a supporting role in Slumdog Millionaire 2008.  Both films won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards in consecutive years.  The movie is set in Connecticut but actually filmed in Yonkers.  While Metro-North trains are shown they are not from the New Haven line which is the only line that runs into Connecticut.  New Haven Line seats are red.  The station shown appears to be Mount Vernon, West.  It is likely that the trains are the Harlem Line.  Harlem and Hudson Lines have blue seats.  Trains leaving from Mount Vernon West do not go to Connecticut without transferring, they also do not go to New Rochelle.