The Queen’s Gambit is easily among the best pieces of electronic content in recent memory.
If, like me, you have bunked college lectures to play chess, you may have an aha moment when you spot the ‘Sicilian Defence’. The mention of masters Alekhine or Botwinik may cause long-buried respect to resurface. But you really needn’t have held a pawn in your hand to soak in the brilliance of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit.
Dare say, it is THE best TV/big screen content in memory.
As in the Mahabharata, lives and histories are written on 64 squares in The Queen’s Gambit. But the games, be they chausat or chess are just metaphors for struggles and victories within. Everything else is just theatre.
Joy to watch
No praise is high enough for Anna Taylor-Joy for shining through a bundle of contradictions. Her character, teenage chess prodigy Beth Harmon, loses herself to the game, but never herself while in the middle of it. She prefers to be intoxicated so that she can see the world clearly.
The orphan seeks refuge from her trauma in the beautiful game that she picks up from a janitor in a basement. She plays games in her head, reading the chess books that she can. Innate flair blends with practiced technique.
Lonely in a crowd. She is arrogant but well-meaning. She is fiercely independent while being vulnerable. But, always, she is feminine. Not once does Joy overplay on the board or elsewhere. From an ugly duckling, she transforms into an elegant swan. Competitors turn into friends after she destroys them. They care for her when she can’t care for herself or them. They chip away at her rough edges.
Excellent casting and setting
The support cast is the secret sauce in The Queen’s Gambit. We have an assortment, ranging from austere matrons; kindly mentors, tragedy queens to resolute rivals.
The games are pulsating, despite there being very few closeups of the chess board. The atmosphere reverberates with nervous energy. The players’ expressions say it all. The drama is all the stronger for its subtlety,
The ambiance; be it, the houses, furniture, cars, apparel and chess pieces hark back to a time of aching nostalgia – a buoyant and romantic cold-war ridden America of the 50s and 60s. Yet it is all very believable. Scenes are framed with imagination, grandeur, and vivacity. The camera pans unconventionally yet sweepingly. The lilting music magically conveys what words cannot. Watch it long enough and you may find yourself transported onto the other side of the screen.
The series crackles with witty banter, that stands out amid quiet successes and unspeakable sadness endured in silence.
I half-expected a poor climax. It seemed hard for the endgame to live up to the stupendous build up. But it did and how!
As Harmon says, chess can also be beautiful. The beauty is in The Queen’s Gambit’s bigheartedness. It is an ode to the power of conviction, the courage to make mistakes and, ultimately, to womanhood!
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