Netflix Documentary Showcase, Part 2 - Word Wars

The documentary "Word Wars" reminds us that truth is stranger than fiction. "Word Wars" follows the lives of a handful of professional Scrabble players on their road to the national championships, and the results are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and sometimes just plain weird:



There are characters here more colorful than any you'll find from the average screenwriter. My favorite is Marlon, a pot-smoker who lives in a poor neighborhood. Marlon's behavior is routinely over-the-top; for isntance, he sleeps with a Tijuana hooker the night before the big Scrabble tourney. But for all the antics, he also happens to be one of the best Scrabble players in the country.

The film's real heart, though, is Joel Sherman, whose personal journey (culminating in one of the most moving uses of the song "Across the Universe" in a film that I've ever seen) illustrates the central irony for many of the people in this documentary - they might be misfits or losers in other areas, but on the Scrabble board, they are champions.

Rating: 8/10