One Streamer Redefines What Community Looks Like

Read Time:4 Minute, 50 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Livestreams with GrandmaPuzzles
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Genre: Documentary, Short
Year Released: 2024, 2025
Runtime: 6m
Director(s): Emily Sheskin
Where to Watch: Shown at the 2025 Cleveland International Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: It’s easy to underestimate a project built around puzzles and livestreams, but doing so would miss the quiet truth at the center of this film. LIVESTREAMS WITH GRANDMAPUZZLES may look soft-spoken from the outside, but beneath that gentle surface is a film that challenges how we understand influence, community, and care. Without shouting, it reshapes how digital platforms can function when sincerity takes the wheel.

This documentary from director Emily Sheskin avoids the flashy, high-concept documentary trends of the genre today. Instead, she makes the radical choice to slow down. Her focus is Adele Tiffith, better known on Twitch as Gma, a jigsaw puzzle streamer who’s amassed a devoted audience — not because she’s flashy but because she’s real. Her channel isn’t built around reaction clips or chaotic stunts. Instead, it’s a place of consistency and connection, and the film reflects that ethos at every level of its production.

Sheskin approaches Adele’s world with the touch of a seasoned documentarian who understands how to translate mood into meaning. Rather than using exposition or voiceover to hammer home a message, she lets the visuals do the storytelling. The use of puzzles as narrative anchors becomes more than a thematic nod — it’s a formal choice that mirrors the construction of the documentary itself.

The puzzles themselves provide a particularly clever bit of visual storytelling. One includes family photos, allowing Adele’s personal history to unfold without conventional interviews. Another features art by Jaleel Campbell, adding a layer of cultural significance that never feels forced. In this structure, puzzles become more than a hobby. They function like film frames, storing memories and assembling meaning from fragments.

And yet, the film doesn’t get lost in sentiment. There’s restraint in the way Sheskin handles potentially emotional material, especially when Adele speaks about loneliness and depression. Those topics are introduced not with drama but with honesty. There’s no sweeping music cue, no slow-motion emotional manipulation — just truth delivered with grace. That honesty is reflected in how Adele engages with her audience. Her Twitch streams are about more than puzzles; they’re about presence. She shows up, and people return that energy in kind.

Equally impressive is how Sheskin avoids flattening Adele into a single identity. Yes, she’s a grandmother. Yes, she’s a puzzle streamer. But she’s also a pioneer — building a space that resists the toxicity of many online platforms. And within that space, she’s advocating for representation. Her dream of creating an all-Black speed-puzzling team may seem like a footnote in a different story, but here, it’s baked into the foundation of who she is and what she’s building. That subtle integration of activism and identity is something many films struggle with, but this one threads it without fanfare.

There’s also a refreshing lack of sensationalism when portraying Adele’s popularity. She’s not framed as a viral oddity or quirky internet darling. Instead, she’s presented as someone who’s earned her community through care. That framing matters. Too often, stories about older internet personalities fall into a trap of patronizing admiration. Sheskin steers clear of that, and the result feels far more authentic.

If there’s one critique, this short format just scratches the surface of what feels like a much larger story. There are hints of a wider puzzle world filled with competitive events and growing subcultures, but we only get brief glimpses. The upcoming feature documentary PUZZLE PEOPLE promises to expand that world, and it’s likely to carry forward the same spirit of care and curiosity.

LIVESTREAMS WITH GRANDMAPUZZLES delivers something rare: a documentary that doesn’t need to sensationalize to be compelling. It understands that a quiet story can land as strongly as something flashier when told with the right tools. In this case, the tools are puzzles, personality, and patience — and each is used thoughtfully.

In a time when most stories rely on conflict or spectacle, this one reminds us that empathy can also be powerful. There’s no viral meltdown, no shocking twist — just a woman who found a way to stay connected through one of the world’s oldest pastimes. That’s not just a story worth telling. That’s one worth sitting still for.

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[photo courtesy of CHICKEN WING PICTURES]

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