The Queen's Gambit Is a Should-Watch

A chess-playing orphan in twentieth century Louisiana transcends her means to grow to be a champion in her sport. This could be a good abstract of Netflix’s new Anya Taylor-Pleasure-led miniseries The Queen’s Gambit — it’s additionally (objectively, come on) boring as hell. On paper, there’s nothing I’d be much less inclined to observe. Properly, soccer, possibly? At the very least that poses an excellent excuse to make nachos and (in higher instances) have associates over. Anyway, I’ve some extent: The Queen’s Gambit is just not what meets the attention. 

The sequence, primarily based on Walter Tevis’s novel of the identical identify, begins in an orphanage, a setting that, at this level, is principally its personal Hollywood cliché. We meet Beth Harmon when she’s 8 years previous, orphaned after her mom dies in a automotive accident. Somewhat than sugar-coating the narrative Annie-style (Daddy Warbucks to the rescue!) or turning the sequence into the form of PG-rated research in “overcoming adversity” that language arts academics will play for his or her eighth-graders earlier than a vacation break for years to return, Gambit takes a gritty method to an all-too-common trope. 

The Queen's Gambit Sounds Boring as Hell However It's Glorious Credit score: Netflix

Beth develops a drug dependency on the orphanage — an dependancy that lurks within the periphery of each body, threatening to tank her prodigious chess profession. Admittedly, bringing dependancy to the (chess) desk isn’t precisely reinventing the wheel, however it provides stress and heft to materials that would in any other case skew as twee. It’s not the manipulative sort of edge-of-your-seat baiting you see in dramatic, however in any other case poorly-executed exhibits like What/If or Fairly Little Liars. It’s a stress that sustains — a stress that propels you to the following episode the way in which Breaking Unhealthy or Killing Eve would. You’re ready for the inevitable fall, however, coming to know Beth as intimately as you do, you pray it gained’t come. 

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The singularity of Gambit’s scope, too, makes it extra partaking than anticipated. Beth and her journey (from the age of 8 to 22) dominates the narrative. Supporting characters come and go — most notably in arcs from Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Moses Ingram — however the focus is all the time squarely on Taylor-Pleasure, whose efficiency is quietly masterful in its personal proper. I might write a dissertation on the subtextual energy of her eyes, however Taylor-Pleasure’s power as Beth runs deeper than that. It’s not an simply categorized function. Beth presents herself as knowledgeable, a prodigy years forward of her age in talent and composure, however the inside strife brewing inside, fostered with every drink or tablet, is all the time one unsuitable transfer away from spilling over. Although Beth tries to maintain it hidden, Taylor-Pleasure subtly reveals the hairline fractures in her visage. 

The Queen's Gambit Sounds Boring as Hell However It's Glorious Credit score: Netflix

And whereas I’d now not classify Gambit as boring, it’s definitely not the simple scroll-through-Twitter-practice-Duolingo multitasking-friendly sequence Netflix tends to favor (see: Emily in Paris, Tiger King). You must focus, which is less complicated stated than performed nowadays — however for a power phone-in-hand viewer like myself, I discovered that the present commanded my consideration higher than something I’ve seen in months. So go forward, log off, remind your self of the foundations of chess, and spend 7 hours watching The Queen’s Gambit. You realize you might have the time.