Simon Ennis’ endearing documentary The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop offers both hardcore board-gamers and the uninitiated a warm hearted overview of one of the world’s oldest and most beloved pastimes. A pursuit that brings people together in the spirit of (usually) friendly competition, board gaming has existed in some form or another since the days of ancient Mesopotamia (possibly even earlier), and it has evolved greatly since the advent of chess, checkers, go, Monopoly, Clue, and other well worn cottage and rec room staples. While The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop sometimes struggles to capture an all encompassing picture of what makes board games so special and dynamic, it does very well at showing why people would get so invested in them, and what keeps people coming back for more.
In the past few decades, board games have become increasingly elaborate in their design and construction. With most new tabletop games coming with rule books the size of novellas and more pieces than Ikea furniture, diving into something new can be daunting for some. But the appeal of elaborate strategy and turn based games was steadily on the rise over the past decade and has now exploded in the wake of a global pandemic where people had plenty of free time to learn new skills. Board gaming is a passionate pursuit for a wide range of people, with something out there to appeal to every age, interest, and skill level. If you already love it, there’s probably a game for it somewhere. And if it doesn’t yet exist, there are plenty of DIY games on the periphery to fill that niche. Or, you can just make something up yourself.
The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop isn’t trying to be a historic overview of board games, but rather a look into its enduring appeal and the people who are trying to make a living out of their passions. Ennis (You Might as Well Live, Lunarcy!) surrounds himself with a lot of erudite, colourful personalities, including close friend and board game enthusiast Dan Corbett, who’s about to take a crack at entering into the recently formed World Series of Board Gaming, a $25,000 tournament to crown the best tabletop player in the world. Tom Vasel is a fedora enthusiast who has become a top online critic of board games and is trying his best to amass one of the world’s largest collections. Candice Harris turned to board games when she got burnt out playing in her band, and has an unexpected love for old school war strategy game, and is in the process of developing her own concept. Museum shipping logistics expert John Hague is in the process of testing and launching a kickstarter for a board game of his own, titled The Last Summit. While Ennis also has a chance to sit down and chat with designers of some of the most high profile board games of the modern era – like Elizabeth Hargrave (Wingspan) and Eric Lang (Blood Rage) – The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop is more about the feeling one gets from learning new skills and the community that naturally forms around multiplayer gaming.
The world of board gaming is so wide ranging and varied that trying to capture all of it in a single volume is an impossible task, but its evident from the outset that Ennis is, himself, a fan of such endeavours. The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop must’ve been a hard movie to edit and plot out, because it’s a topic where there’s no beginning, no ending, and thousands of different avenues to follow. Viewers are bound to wonder why a lot of topics (classic games, the continued popularity of role playing adventures, the rise of the gaming cafe) are left on the table, but Ennis has crafted a conscious, wholesome, and entertaining film about people and their individual struggles rather than historical specifics. There’s also a pronounced commitment to showcasing inclusivity within the board gaming community that adds a lot of depth and perspective that might’ve been lost in a more straightforward examination of this subject.
But just like a good board game, The Hobby (which is what people in this world refer to as the milieu of playing and collecting games) gives the viewer a chance to relax and think about simpler pleasures amid a world that has grown increasingly heavy. Why do you think so many people turned to games over the past several years in the first place? And even if the sort of intense, finely detailed, epically long games played by Ennis’ subjects, you might get turned on to something worth trying in the future. Or maybe to just reconnect with some old favourites.
Side note: if you made it this far, and you’re a fan of Wingspan, I’m always down for a game. Just throwing that out there.
The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop screens at TIFF Lightbox on Wednesday, June 18 at 6:30 pm, with a special Q&A featuring Ennis and Wingspan creator Elizabeth Hargrave. Ennis and Hargrave will also do Q&As following screenings of the film at on Friday, June 20 at 6:45 pm at Metro Cinema in Edmonton and on Sunday, June 22 at 3:45 pm at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver. It will screen again (with an Ennis Q&As) On Saturday, July 5 at 3:30 pm at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto, Monday, July 7 at 7 pm at The Westdale Theatre in Hamilton, and on Saturday, July 12 at 1pm at The Revue in Toronto. It will be available on VOD starting July 22.
