The Queen's Gambit

slightly late to the party, but i just finished watching The Queen's Gambit on Netflix recently and really, absolutely, totally, loved it.

as a former amateur competitive chess player, i was amazed by how accurate the miniseries portrayed not just the individual games but also the tournament landscape and culture. it brought back so many good memories of those days where for eight whole hours, the world was reduced to just that battlefield of sixty-four squares and nothing else mattered except the rhythmic tick-tick-tick of the chess clock marking off every second spent analysing.

i also loved the raw coming-of-age emotion that just exploded out of Beth's struggles, about home and family, about what it meant to 'belong', about love and lust and relationships. Anya Taylor-Joy's performance was so real, so phenomenally good, and she provided the perfect character to combine these real-life struggles with the theoretically abstract battles on the chessboard.

the show does deserve its mature audience rating, being unafraid to show the descent into madness and isolation from others that accompanies the easy escapism in drugs and alcohol abuse. it grapples with these issues in a very nuanced way, beyond the black-or-white dichotomy that otherwise rules the chessboard. notwithstanding, it’s also a good reminder in and of itself of the need to drink responsibly, and to look out for your drinking buddies when they’re feeling low.

the choice of release as a mini-series was the right one, as The Queen's Gambit had considerably more space than the usual full-length movie to flesh out its characters and issues, though i was sorely disappointed that it was over after just seven episodes. i know i'll find myself rewatching this one again someday - it's one of the few shows in 2020 that has left such a strong impression on me.