Series Elo Everyone
The Queen's Gambit opens with a young lady - Beth - waking up in a trashed hotel bedroom. She throws on a dress, clambers over stacks of empty alcohol bottles, swallows down a few prescription drugs, and then descends into the lobby to faceoff against the World's greatest chess grandmaster. Almost the rest of the series is told in flashback, to tell the story of how an orphaned girl in the 50s becomes a chess prodigy and addict.
Despite not being based on any particular living person, Gambit is styled like a biopic. In my mind, it most resembles the movie Ray, which shares its similar themes of life defining childhood trauma and battles with addiction. It also does the same sort of thing of romanticising a person to the point where even their personal flaws, such as their addiction or bad attitude, are excused by the hardships we have been shown, so we're never meant to think they're really that bad (no matter how insufferable they probably would be around in real life). The bigger problem with it being like a biopic - and a sports underdog story to boot - is that there are only so many ways these stories can go; will they kick their addiction? Will they go to Soviet Russia and triumph over the competition? Well, what do you think?
Despite being an overly familiar story, Gambit tells it very well. The show is chic stylish, imaginative, and it manages to convey a lot of its ideas through subtlety and gesture alone. Beth is a deeply introverted and detached person, and even though she rarely talks, we immediately understand what she is feeling and thinking. Similarly, her complicated emotional relationships with the various adults and friends throughout her life go completely unstated, but feel just as intuitive. It's nice to have a show that doesn't feel the need to spell this stuff out for us, and that is confident enough to let the acting do the talking.
The show also set itself the hard task of making chess exciting to lay people, presenting it as something that can be heartbreaking, or sexy, or annoying, or terrifying. With sports pics, it is far easier to visualize an impressive move or a physically taxing moment, but this isn't Rocky 4, and Beth's opponent isn't some frost giant she has to punch out in slow motion. I'm happy to see that Gambit has largely succeeded in its attempts to dramatize the boardgame, to the point that a lot of people are now taking a sudden interest in chess. And I'm the same, dusting off my old chess.com account. On seeing my pathetically low rating, I've now decided to stick with connect four.
Series
The Queen's Gambit opens with a young lady - Beth - waking up in a trashed hotel bedroom. She throws on a dress, clambers over stacks of empty alcohol bottles, swallows down a few prescription drugs, and then descends into the lobby to join chess match against the World's greatest chess grandmaster. Almost the rest of the series is told in flashback, to tell the story of how an orphaned girl becomes a chess prodigy and addict.
Despite not being based on any particular living person, Gambit is styled like a biopic. In my mind, it most resembles the movie Ray, which shares its similar themes of life defining childhood trauma and battles with addiction. It also does the same sort of thing of romanticising a person to the point where even their personal flaws, such as their addiction or bad attitude, are excused by the hardships we have been shown, so we're never meant to think they're really thaat bad (no matter how insufferable they probably would be around in real life). The bigger problem with it being like a biopic - and a sports underdog story to boot - is that there are only so many ways these stories can go; will they triumph over their addiction? Will they got to Soviet Russia and triumph over the competition? Well, what do you think?
Despite being an overly familiar story, Gambit tells it very well. The show is chic stylish, imaginative, and it manages to convey a lot of its ideas through subtlety and gesture alone. Beth is a deeply introverted and detached person, and even though she rarely talks, we immediately understand what she is feeling and thinking. Similarly, her complicated emotional relationships with the various adults and friends throughout her life go completely unstated, but feel just as intuitive. It's nice to have a show that doesn't feel the need to spell this stuff out for us, and that is competent enough to let the acting do the talking.
The show also set itself the hard task of making chess exciting to lay people, presenting it as something that can be heartbreaking, or sexy, or annoying, or terrifying. With sports pics, it is far easier to visualize an impressive move or a physically taxing moment, but this isn't Rocky 4, and Beth's opponent isn't some frost giant she has to punch out in slow motion. I'm happy to see that Gambit has largely succeeded in its attempts to dramatize the boardgame, to the point that a lot of people are now taking a sudden interest in chess. And I'm the same, having dusted off my old chess.com. And then on seeing my pathetically low rating, I've decided I will stick to connect four.
Series Congrats to this show for making chess sexy, I guess
The best description of this show I've seen is a Tweet that called it "a sports anime for white women". That may or may not have been meant meanly, but I agree with it affectionately. The story is not all that original (in fairness, the book it's from is from The '80s), and hits many familiar Sports Story and even Shōnen tropes — underdog turns out to be The Gift, hits some roadblocks, trains hard for a bit, and ultimately achieves their goal in a nail-biting fight that her allies come together for. What's surprising is how well it's executed in miniseries form.
To start with, Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role of Beth is superb. The "troubled white male genius protagonist" is a perennial pet peeve of mine, but despite Miss Harmon fitting 4/5 of those words, she never becomes unlikable. Frustrating, sure. But the story threads that needle well by exemplifying the Coming-of-Age Story aspect of it all: for all her flaws and talents, she's a teenage girl with a ton of baggage. The show gets a lot of mileage out of how Beth's incredible genius has also hindered her with her drug addiction, and unlike certain TWMGPs, it ultimately portrays her in the wrong. Underneath Beth's cocky competition face and fierce looks, Taylor-Joy never loses that wide-eyed vulnerability that made your root so hard for Beth in the first place. And while many TWMGPs are all about how they work better alone, Beth triumphs because she learns to lets other people in.
The production design and cinematography are wonderful. The whole thing looks so chic, and the camera work is very smooth. I admire how they pulled off the chess segments in particular — they don't go in detail about any of the rules, moves or strategies, leaving them as genius bonuses for the chess-savvy in the audience, but the thing is portrayed in such a way that you're engrossed in this traditionally nerdy sport even if you have no idea what's going on.
Admittedly, the show falters in its portrayal of the social issues of the time. Beth faces some light sexism but is otherwise unhindered, and the final episode includes some sprinkles of racial troubles faced by black people and Cold War realpolitik that don't really register as meaningful. The final act comes together too quickly and neatly on the whole. But again, this is Beth's story, and the way she stares down her opponent in the final minutes of her match still manages to feel earned. On the whole, it's an incredibly bingeable few hours that is one of the better sports stories of recent times.