Gretchen has an annual ritual: on a certain day, she tries to solve as many crossword puzzles as possible. The record is seventy-seven. She sets off into the thicket of New York: Gotham's metropolis, especially the noise of the subway, is supposed to loosen up her brain and speed up her memory and powers of deduction. While she ponders and scribbles her way through the city, her mother tries to reach her, leaving messages on her answering machine, sometimes angry, sometimes desperate, always excluded from her daughter's existence. When the roar seems to be of no avail, she tries the silence of her own four walls ...
Naderi's American protagonists are mostly obsessives, trapped in their own systems. Gretchen is no exception: she can't win - she can break her record at some point, but only to have to start the fight against time and words all over again. That's what you call a no-win situation. The viewer is fascinated by Naderi's dazzlingly vivid views of the metropolis, whose unrest and hustle and bustle are supposed to provide Gretchen with the necessary inspiration - rarely has the most filmed city in the world been seen like this.
