by SARAH ROWLAND

“If you don’t have Will Shortz, you don’t really have a movie about puzzles.” That’s documentary filmmaker Patrick Creadon talking about The New York Times crossword editor who also happens to be the star of Creadon’s directorial debut, Wordplay. “Will Shortz is to crosswords what the Pope is to Roman Catholicism. He didn’t invent them, but he’s done a really good job of nurturing them and making them grow.”

But just because Shortz is the primary focus of this sweet little film about people who eat, breathe and sleep crosswords, that doesn’t mean he got any final say on the final cut.

“I had no intention of making a film where Will Shortz was going to be the executive producer,” says Creadon, who’s talking to the Mirror from his Toronto hotel suite. “I hate to say it, but there’s been a real rash of films lately where the people in the film are also the producers of the film. I mean how are you going to tell an objective story if the person who’s the star of your film is the person making the film?”

Speaking of Al Gore, Bill Clinton (noted longtime obsessive solver) is among the many celebrity talking heads in Wordplay. He’s also the one who got the ball rolling in terms of landing interviews with the likes of Jon Stewart, Bob Dole and the Indigo Girls.

“Once the president signed on, it was pretty easy getting everybody else. Not only that but it was also a pretty big thrill as well,” says Creadon about he and his spouse/producer Christine O’Malley meeting Clinton for the first time. “When he walked into the room and said hello to us you would have thought that we were the last three people standing on the earth. He’s very warm, very engaging and he loves people. I always kind of knew that about him, but when we started talking, I got the feeling that he would have spent the entire night talking to us.

“But of course, he had about 10 other people there with him, plus the Secret Service, and they were quick to whisk him away shortly after the interview was done. He had had a long day and was scheduled to fly to Africa early the next morning.”

Geek fest

Along with presidents, folk dykes and talk show hosts, Creadon followed several hardcore competitive solvers as they psyched themselves up for the 28th-annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament hosted by, who else: Shortz. And as you can imagine, they are the most intensely nerdy group of misfits ever to congregate in one conference room. It would have been easy to edit Wordplay in such a way that made fun of its subjects especially when you have nasal-voiced wordsmiths salivating over the letter “Q” and all its many wonders.

“I’m a pretty respectful person and I knew that I was not setting out to present an unflattering portrayal of anyone in the film,” says Creadon, a dedicated solver himself. “Someone at a festival screening once made the comment, ‘Your movie it’s not mean-spirited at all, what gives?’ I was like, ‘Why would we make fun of a bunch of people who share the same common interest that we have?’ That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

So how did Creadon and O’Malley convince a financer that following around a group of unsexy solvers who shamelessly crack puns every chance they get would make for good drama? Well, he didn’t.

“The best thing about making an independent is you don’t have to sell it to anybody,” he says. “We just had to convince ourselves that we wanted to do it. And it was a no-brainer because we knew we had something. I could have spent the next 20 years pitching this movie to film execs and I never would have gotten anywhere.”

Instead the husband/wife team took a year off work, made it on their own dime and submitted it to the 2006 Sundance, where it was well-received by solvers and non-solvers alike.

“That sort of changed things overnight,” he says. “It was like we ended up holding the winning lottery ticket. I mean it’s a real crowd-pleaser. Which is funny because I think when people hear about our movie’s subject matter, their expectations are incredibly low. But then they walk into the movie and it’s just a delight for them to watch. The film just really resonates.”

Wordplay opens Friday, June 23

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