There is a dedicated community of people for whom SCRABBLE is more than a domestic nicety – it is an obsession. They devote years of their lives to mental and physical preparation and travel the country – some full-time – competing in cutthroat tournaments. The dictionary is studied with religious devotion, each obscure word another weapon for the ultimate battle. For some, the game keeps them teetering on the safe side of sanity. For others, it has pushed them just over. Some scrape by on the meager winnings alone. In another corner of the SCRABBLE universe – New York City’s Washington Square Park – you’ll find a ragtag bunch oblivious to anything besides the games at hand – restaurateurs, grizzled veterans, the seemingly homeless – all obsessing about words with a Q but no U: QAT, QAID, QINTAR…

This is NOT your grandmother’s SCRABBLE

Word Wars delves into both of these worlds, focusing on four of the game’s highest-ranked players (also featured in Stefan Fatsis’ best-selling book Word Freak), as they advance from heated competition in neighborhood parks and clubs to highly organized regional and national tournaments, culminating in the 2002 National Championship in San Diego, where the top prize is $25,000 and an appearance on the Today Show. The filmmakers weave various elements of the SCRABBLE subculture into the main story: Laela Kilbourn’s camera captures the industrial beauty of the HASBRO factory where sets are churned out like lemmings; Conor O’Neill’s editing builds the intensity of a best-of-50 $1,000 marathon, played to exhaustion by two main characters; Eye-catching graphics by Cassidy Curtis and Mike Hackett visually illustrate the mental gymnastics; Music by Thor Madsen of Wax Poetic (Norah Jones’ former backup band) adds an up-tempo groove to the game play and a haunting resonance to the darker moments.

You may not want to be these “word warriors” , but you will definitely be drawn into their journey.