"When you complete a puzzle, you know that you have made all of the right choices." Robert (Irrfan Khan)
Puzzle's metaphor is easy enough: Middle-aged Agnes (Kelly Macdonald) needs to fit the pieces of her life together to become fulfilled. However, this small, lovely, poignant drama/ romance reveals that solving a 1000 piece puzzle is a piece of cake next to the puzzle of one's life.
Agnes is chief cook and bottle washer and everything else for the three men in her life: husband, garage mechanic Louie (David Denman) and sons Gabe (Austin Abrams) and Ziggy (Bubba Weller). This demure, loving Catholic lady doesn't yet know how much she needs change, symbolized by the puzzle she speeds through, a birthday gift at her own party, which she organized and decorated. One of the film's revelations is that the party is for herself, not someone else.
As change agent, the puzzle reveals her exceptional talent and mind that puts the pieces together at warp speed. Also, she discovers a love for her sleepy-eyed competition partner, Robert. The film's minimalism shows this emotion not through grand moments but little ones that lead to a slow recognition that the pieces of love fit nicely, thank you, on an emotional level. On the sexual side, the understating Agnes tells her husband that the onetime Robert and she had sex, "It wasn't great, but not bad either."
In this fine example of incremental exposition, the puzzling parts of life such as with her husband show him to be caring and simple but ultimately not enough for Agnes's burgeoning intellect and emotions. Humanity is the name of the real game here, and Agnes is now ready for a ride as she takes the train to a long desired place that's on the train line and in her heart.
