Plot Summary – Set during the Cold War era, orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon struggles with addiction in a quest to become the greatest chess player in the world.

★★★★½ 

Watched on 19 Nov 2021

If I had to teach a class on how to make the most entertaining and widely appealing series of television, I’d use this miniseries as an example. I’d avoided this for a year for the same reason I’m avoiding Squid Game right now because I felt very thrown-off watching it because it seemed like everyone on Earth had watched it and I would have nothing new to say. My best friend convinced (read as threatened) me to watch this and I’m really glad that I did cause I was blown away by it. It has been a long time since I’ve wanted to binge something in one go and this made me have an overwhelming urge to not do anything else until I finished the show. That’s the crazy thing for me though, because I’m sure anyone who’s watched more than 5 movies in their life could predict every plot beat and character choice except for a few genuine surprises, and yet it manages to keep you completely engrossed in its universe. I think I have to say straight off the bat that Anya Taylor-Joy gives a phenomenal performance on the show and that so much is conveyed just through her movement and expressions. This show would be an absolute failure if everything had to be spoken out loud. This is a very physical performance and Anya captures it with extreme nuance and care. In addition to this, the editing is simply out of this world. To make something that is ‘conventionally’ not compelling like Chess (as opposed to other sports which have much more obvious ‘cinematic’ aspects to them) feel so intense is a feat that has to be applauded. A brilliant combination of smooth editing and brilliant camera work (especially with the change of the lens focus to reflect Beth’s emotions) make the show feel so lived-in. There are obvious flaws with the show. The writing is poor and it comes off even as cringe at times. I also found the central conceit of the show hard to believe, that a woman can overcome the sexist system merely by talent and that men would go out of their way to help her even though they get nothing from it themselves. However, the show is so entertaining and made me so excited throughout its runtime that I absolutely forgave it for its imperfections because in the end, it set out what it wanted to achieve. It tells its story in an extremely fascinating way. What more could you ask for? I like to think that this is what someone with less exposure to film and cinema thinks that arthouse is like and that’s something that amuses me and gives me great comfort.