How could a movie about a subject as, well...static as crossword puzzles be interesting, especially at feature length? As Wordplay, a delightful little surprise of a movie, demonstrates, it can’t, exactly. The movie works because it’s not about paper puzzles but instead about real people — charming, sweet-natured, obsessed. The central figure is Will Shortz, puzzle editor at The New York Times and also an NPR regular, who has organized and hosted a competition for crossword enthusiasts every year since 1978. The movie focuses on several of the top competitors in the tournament, with occasional interruptions for funny interview excerpts with celebrity crossword-heads like Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart.

It’s all very lightweight, but the enthusiasm and camaraderie of the principals is infectious. They’re all great friends, and by film’s end you may feel, as I did, that you’d love to be friends with them too. The competition itself is exciting without being cutthroat or mean-spirited. That said, 94 minutes is possibly more of this than absolutely necessary — it could have been even more fun at just an hour.

Another skillfully-wrought little documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, has a good subject and handles it effectively. (And like Wordplay, it would be better at just an hour, feeling stretched out to feature length.) It’s primarily about General Motors’ EV1, an electric car halfheartedly test-marketed in California beginning in 1996. The audience responds to the space-age-looking little two-seater as if it’s a teddy bear or a favorite pet. When GM starts hauling them off to the scrapyard, there are gasps and moans as if we’re watching living beings euthanized. I resisted this anthropomorphism — they’re only cars, folks.

Nonetheless, the filmmakers convincingly cast Detroit automakers, big oil companies, and the Bush administration as villainous, shortsighted, or both, in deliberately sabotaging the EV1 and its siblings. And there is satisfying irony in watching the success of the Prius and other hybrid vehicles, creating a bandwagon effect that brings Ford and GM aboard at last.

So if you've seen Superman and Prada, and find that most other current releases don't grab you, keep an eye out for these two miniature gems.