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I watched "The Queen's Gambit" and it's as good as you've heard
If you haven't heard, you should have. Anya Taylor-Joy brings to life Beth Harmon, a child prodigy who learns chess at a very young age and shows immediate aptitude that quickly grows to "prodigy" level. As a seven-episode series from Netflix, The Queen's Gambit has more room to adapt its novel source than a typical movie and rarely feels like it's dragging things out the way a standard-season series might. (4/5 stars for good performances and interesting scripting)
I'll try to avoid big spoilers but if you want to stop here I'll just say "watch this".
We begin with very young Beth's tragic orphaning and placement into a strict and backward-looking religious girl's orphanage. The time is the late 1950s. Then we follow Beth through her discovery of chess and the next decade-plus of her life. The story is told largely through chess as that's her obsession and her way of interacting with the world. At one point, it's driven home particularly poignantly when she's alone with someone and they don't know what to say - it's the height of awkward - and he says "let's play chess". Suddenly, everything is focused and the people know what to do again.
The story is not always easy, particularly where it touches on themes of alcoholism and addiction. At other times, it seems to avoid even mentioning some of the most charged issues of the late 20th century. For example, young Beth quickly makes friends with an older Black orphan girl who seems pretty well aware of the racial divides and racism of America at that time, but the topic never really gets discussed. We pass over the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr King, and the Vietnam War never gets mentioned despite featuring men who were of draftable age.
Similarly, there is some very light discussion of the attention Beth gets because she's an attractive girl/young woman in a field overdominated by men. But women's liberation, sexism, the pill, and patriarchy aren't mentioned either.
It's hard to imagine how a young woman could come of age - even in mostly rural Kentucky - in the 60s with absolutely no influence from any of these things. The story seems to take place in an odd bubble, shielded from the rest of the world. Perhaps that's intended as a metaphor for chess itself. Beth's story is inward-focused on her personal challenges and her relationships with the people around her.
That said, the series succeeds at two important things, I think largely on the intensity of Taylor-Joy's performance. We care about Beth, and we get excited about chess. This leads us to a finale that is worth the ride to get there. All the threads are brought together and I found the payoff satisfying. There's no artificial villain to muck things up - it's just Beth against herself, Beth against her chess opponents, Beth against/with the people she relates to.
I'll try to avoid big spoilers but if you want to stop here I'll just say "watch this".
We begin with very young Beth's tragic orphaning and placement into a strict and backward-looking religious girl's orphanage. The time is the late 1950s. Then we follow Beth through her discovery of chess and the next decade-plus of her life. The story is told largely through chess as that's her obsession and her way of interacting with the world. At one point, it's driven home particularly poignantly when she's alone with someone and they don't know what to say - it's the height of awkward - and he says "let's play chess". Suddenly, everything is focused and the people know what to do again.
The story is not always easy, particularly where it touches on themes of alcoholism and addiction. At other times, it seems to avoid even mentioning some of the most charged issues of the late 20th century. For example, young Beth quickly makes friends with an older Black orphan girl who seems pretty well aware of the racial divides and racism of America at that time, but the topic never really gets discussed. We pass over the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr King, and the Vietnam War never gets mentioned despite featuring men who were of draftable age.
Similarly, there is some very light discussion of the attention Beth gets because she's an attractive girl/young woman in a field overdominated by men. But women's liberation, sexism, the pill, and patriarchy aren't mentioned either.
It's hard to imagine how a young woman could come of age - even in mostly rural Kentucky - in the 60s with absolutely no influence from any of these things. The story seems to take place in an odd bubble, shielded from the rest of the world. Perhaps that's intended as a metaphor for chess itself. Beth's story is inward-focused on her personal challenges and her relationships with the people around her.
That said, the series succeeds at two important things, I think largely on the intensity of Taylor-Joy's performance. We care about Beth, and we get excited about chess. This leads us to a finale that is worth the ride to get there. All the threads are brought together and I found the payoff satisfying. There's no artificial villain to muck things up - it's just Beth against herself, Beth against her chess opponents, Beth against/with the people she relates to.