Lost for Words
- 2007
- 1h
YOUR RATING
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
Has human interest and humour but is far too slight to be memorable or worth seeking out
There are 171,476 words in the oxford English Dictionary. The average educated adult knows about 20,000 of those words. The average top level scrabble player knows about 120,000 words. This film follows four English players as they prepare for the Matchplay Championship in Exeter and talk about what they love about words and the game of scrabble.
I wonder if it was Louis Theroux that started it or if it was someone else but I do enjoy the genre of "slightly eccentric people reality fly-on-the-wall documentaries" (or, slightly more catchy, "quirkumentaries"). This film is yet another one in this genre as it focuses on scrabble players, in particular four people in England preparing for a national tournament. As is the genre norm, it is not cruel but it is rather quite affectionate with just a hint of mocking by virtue of holding the subjects and the world up to public viewing. This is not to say that it is a great example of this because it isn't. It doesn't find enough to do with the characters and only occasionally does it succeed in getting in touch with the characters and drawing out genuine humour or pathos from them.
This leaves the film actually looking at the world of scrabble (which is never the main aim of this type of thing) and it is not actually that interesting a world, which is a shame. As a result it is not as good as it could have been and is not up with the better examples of this type of film. The four main characters do provide just about enough interest but director Whitehead needed to do more to get more from them. Finding former talk show host Chrystal Rose was a surprise and I must confess I just thought she was wonderful until the end of the film where she made a point of her race to a all-white crowd (which nobody else had done) and then demeaned them slightly by pointing out the stereotype (she didn't seem to notice that it fitted in the room nicely!). The other guys are good mixes with the interesting former champion, the jolly retired man who just busies himself in his own little world and the up and coming guy (who writes some of the worst song lyrics ever broadcast on channel 4 and they've had their share).
Amusing little "weird reality" documentary that is very slight but still has enough gentle humour and human interest to get by. You can see strong moments and you can see the potential so I suppose a question that one must ask is why Whitehead (as cameraman, director and producer) didn't make a better film with more of that potential fulfilled?
I wonder if it was Louis Theroux that started it or if it was someone else but I do enjoy the genre of "slightly eccentric people reality fly-on-the-wall documentaries" (or, slightly more catchy, "quirkumentaries"). This film is yet another one in this genre as it focuses on scrabble players, in particular four people in England preparing for a national tournament. As is the genre norm, it is not cruel but it is rather quite affectionate with just a hint of mocking by virtue of holding the subjects and the world up to public viewing. This is not to say that it is a great example of this because it isn't. It doesn't find enough to do with the characters and only occasionally does it succeed in getting in touch with the characters and drawing out genuine humour or pathos from them.
This leaves the film actually looking at the world of scrabble (which is never the main aim of this type of thing) and it is not actually that interesting a world, which is a shame. As a result it is not as good as it could have been and is not up with the better examples of this type of film. The four main characters do provide just about enough interest but director Whitehead needed to do more to get more from them. Finding former talk show host Chrystal Rose was a surprise and I must confess I just thought she was wonderful until the end of the film where she made a point of her race to a all-white crowd (which nobody else had done) and then demeaned them slightly by pointing out the stereotype (she didn't seem to notice that it fitted in the room nicely!). The other guys are good mixes with the interesting former champion, the jolly retired man who just busies himself in his own little world and the up and coming guy (who writes some of the worst song lyrics ever broadcast on channel 4 and they've had their share).
Amusing little "weird reality" documentary that is very slight but still has enough gentle humour and human interest to get by. You can see strong moments and you can see the potential so I suppose a question that one must ask is why Whitehead (as cameraman, director and producer) didn't make a better film with more of that potential fulfilled?
helpful•00
- bob the moo
- Apr 30, 2007
Details
- Runtime1 hour
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content