The Queen's Gambit (2020)

The Queen's Gambit, released late in October, is so good it reminded me that November was a sweeps month on TV, when the industry puts its best foot forward to goose up numbers for advertising rates. Is that still a thing? Anyway, the Netflix miniseries is long, at seven hours, but sectioned off nicely into seven episodes and with a hard finish (I very much hope). It's based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, who also wrote the source novels for The Hustler, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Color of Money. I would classify The Queen's Gambit as a sports type of picture but it has lots of satisfying girl power and nerd power as well. It's based on a novel but often feels eerily real, set in the '50s and '60s. Beth Harmon (a remarkable Anya Taylor-Joy and nearly as good Isla Johnston as the young Beth) is an orphan in Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of a mentally ill woman and a man she had an affair with. In the orphanage for girls, with the help of a janitor, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp), Beth learns to play chess and it is immediately obvious she is a prodigy. At the same time, the orphanage gives the girls tranquilizers every day and Beth becomes addicted—the drug is good for her game in interesting ways but naturally bad for her soul. The series tracks her rise to prominence after she is adopted as she takes the chess world by storm in her teens. Along the way she has to knock off the Kentucky state champion and then the US champion before facing the dread Soviet Russians, masters of the chess universe in this world. The Queen's Gambit is full of great characters—Beth herself, young and older, Mr. Shaibel, the woman who adopts her, Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), and the men she vanquishes at the board, Harry Beltik (Harry Melling), Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and others. The mysterious Soviet monolith Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski) is her most terrifying opponent, an iceberg who plays with precision and intimidating authority. I don't know chess that well, and never was any good at it, but the excitement around the game can be like the excitement of hackers doing amazing things because they can, and the picture is further powered by the sheer competitive spirit of the tournaments. There are some pretty good spelling bee movies that work this way too. There's enough technical jargon on chess to fool me anyway and I love Beth's absorption, confidence, and ability to demolish opponents. As a miniseries set in the '60s it is full of musical interludes. I thought they went to that well perhaps a bit too much, especially as the series proceeds, but there are some very fine pop music moments along the way here. The Queen's Gambit is fun, fast, and full of surprises. Don't miss it if you can.