A scene depicting two people looming intently over a chessboard plays out with the same intensity as a high-speed car chase in Netflix’s new miniseries, The Queen’s Gambit.
Plot spoiler alert
A Nuanced Coming Of Age Story
Queen’s Gambit’s story follows Elizabeth “Beth” Harmon’s through the world of chess, set in the late 1960s, in a coming-of-age meets The Dark Horse story. The Netflix series is not a true story, despite popular belief. However, the teleplay is based on a 1983 American novel of the same name by Walter Tevis.
At the age of eight, Beth’s mother dies in a car crash. The orphan child goes to sent to the Methuen Home for Christian Girls, where the children are fed tranquilisers to keep them sedated, which are later banned by the state. While running errands, she happens upon Mr Shaibel, the orphanage’s custodian, playing a quiet game of chess by himself, and from there, her journey as a wunderkind of the sport begins.
Anya Taylor-Joy plays the role of Beth with graceful ease. Her eyes are a direct window to the inner workings of her mind – you can almost hear her inner monologue even without her lips moving. Isla Johnston, who plays a younger Beth, meets the camera with the same amalgamation of intensity and deadpan, and Beth’s character arc becomes all the more believable.
The opening scene shows Beth stumbling out of a bathtub, clearly hungover and immediately reaching for green pills that indicate that something was amiss, to begin with. These are the same pills the orphanage used to tranquillise kids, and are cathartic in Beth’s journey as a prodigy. Late at night, when the drugs take effect, she looks up at the ceiling, which is now a chessboard, and plays and imbibes moves in her mind. These then fuel the actual games she plays. At first with Mr Shaibel, who teaches her everything he knows, and eventually, with her subsequent matches.
FEMINIST CHESS PLAY
Beth’s first match outside the Methuen basement is against a large group of boys from a student chess club. A scene showing them forebodingly crowding around her as she stares back is followed closely by her almost seamless victory over them all.
Throughout Queen’s Gambit, we see Beth being scoffed at initially by all the men around her, but that’s quickly followed by gaping wonder when she wins her games with ease. A significant chunk of her story is her struggle to win against her fiercest competitor, Borgov, a Russian chess world champion. Reading about herself in magazines, Beth finds she and her talents are reduced continuously to her being a woman – nothing is said of her skills and intuition. Her life’s journey is that of as a woman trying to make it in a man’s world when, in reality, Beth’s story has as many layers as does a chess strategy.
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Beth’s mind is her biggest ally and worst enemy. Her addiction to pills and alcohol both fuel her games and leave her mostly isolated and alienated, unable to truly belong. Regardless, she forges a camaraderie with Jolene (Moses Ingram), her best friend from Methuen. Her relationship with adoptive mother Alma, played by Marielle Heller, is heartbreakingly beautiful.
These women come together to push Beth forward in her journey. Alma holds her hands tightly during all her lows and celebrates all her wins as if they were (and they were) her own.
Her adoptive mother’s demise impacts Beth, who’s already felt the loss of her biological mother. She often sits in Alma’s chair, wears her coat, drinks what she drank, and watches the shows she would watch just to feel the same comforting presence again.
THE TOKEN BLACK WOMAN CHARACTER
Jolene shows up for Beth when she hits rock bottom and lets her know that while she has her “own shit to deal with”, she will continue showing up when Beth needs her. But that’s all there is to Jolene’s role. It plays along the same lines of a token character of colour, who delivers one powerful monologue.
Jolene’s story is not fleshed enough to display the real meat on her bones.
SEX APPEAL IN CHESS, WHAT?
The series also introduces a level of sex appeal to the sport of chess that I didn’t think existed. ‘Can I start your clock?’ is so layered with innuendos when it’s followed by cocked eyebrows and sly smiles. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd plays Townes, who is sexy and smouldering, and every game he plays against Beth is so fuelled by sexual tension that it’s hard to look away from the screen. He becomes her unrequited love, but there are mutual respect and adoration that eventually brings Beth to her victory and subsequent character redemption.
Every game he plays against Beth is so fuelled by sexual tension that it’s hard to look away from the screen
The show is accurate to the period in which it is set. Its visual appeal is augmented by a fitting background score, composed by Carlos Rafael Rivera.
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BRILLIANT STAGING
The muted colour palette, set against the sombre backdrop of the late 60s, and ominous music contribute to the intensity of the show. They heighten the loss of two mothers, the struggle with addiction, the mental burden of being a child genius, the pain of being abandoned by all father figures, and the trauma of attaching one’s self-worth to one single thing.
A scene that hits close is when Beth, losing a match to Borgov, is sent down a deep spiral of drinking and pills, to a point where she passes out on the floor. It’s reminiscent of the ending scene of the first episode. In her bid to stay focused on the floating chessboard that she sees every night above her head, Beth overdoses on pills. Subsequently, she collapses as the Methuen headmistress and her peers look on. Beth’s frantic search for perfection in the game often leads to her own downfall.
AN EXPERIENCE THAT’LL LEAVE YOU ON A HIGH
The final episode comes across too much like the series finale of a sitcom. It’s missing the nuance, darkness, excitement of the previous hours. It is as if the writers forced all the characters to unite for the “greater good”. One event fixes all low-points in the protagonist’s life. It’s feels fake, like forced optimism. But, the audience will find it hard to let go of Beth as she attains her final feat after a long struggle.
All the friends she makes along the way unite to give Beth the final push she needs to defeat Borgov. No pills or alcohol involved in her playing the game of her life – she looks up. Miraculously, there is a chessboard floating above her head, and its pieces move into the right places. This is something she wasn’t able to do without the pills before.
The Queen’s Gambit is an experience, and a remarkably satisfying one at that. It is fast-pasted, tightly written, with no mind paid to unnecessary side-stories. The characters are rounded, and the actors do a fantastic job in bringing them to life.
Even with minimal knowledge of the game, the show will grab you from the first minute, and keep you hooked till the end. I will buy a chess set, and think you’ll be tempted to get one as well.
Queen’s Gambit available on Netflix India
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The author of this piece wishes to remain anonymous, and goes by the pseudonym Megha Jain.
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