A mentally-afflicted young man is accused of murdering his longtime benefactor. The real truth of what happened lies in his mad obsession with his supposed victim's old typewriter, on which he types relentlessly, day and night.
Before introverted word-nerd Zoe gains the courage to enter the National Scrabble Championship, she meets her emotional match in Marty, an irascible recluse. She finds him equally pitted against the opposing forces in her life - other people - including family, co-workers and a couple of particularly irksome adversaries standing in the way of her dream to become the world's second female National Scrabble Champion.