The new movie “Puzzle” is a low budget movie about the decisions we make in our 20’s that may cause us, because of money, obligations and family – to not realize our full potential or ever have the chance to figure out who we really are. For many of us, there is not enough money or time to find ourselves by going to a college that fewer can afford and some find themselves later in life unhappy about the choices they made in their youth. In the case of this story, Agnes is a wife in her early 40’s of a mechanic with 20 sons about to go to college, who finds herself trapped in a lonely boring life familiar to far too many married women. Through a random gift of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, Agnes finds that she is not only good at putting jigsaw puzzles together, but in is fact a rare genius at pattern recognition. As random as the shape of the puzzle pieces, Agnes buys another puzzle in New York City and through a flier at the store, becomes partners with another puzzle expert and their collaboration blooms into Jigsaw puzzle contests – who even knew there was such a thing?

Puzzle is a high quality low budget movie that has a great message and symbolism, and was engrossing throughout the entire 2 hours. One of the great speeches in the movie was by Agnes puzzle partner Robert, played very well by Irrfan Khan. He says, “Life is random and most of the time completely out of our control. With Puzzles, we are completely in control and when the puzzle is completed, we know we made all the right choices”. Anyone who sees this movie may have a strong desire to buy a 1000 piece puzzle and try to put it together, and this has always been a fun hobby for many people.

I strongly recommend Puzzle for its message, symbolism and quality of acting.