The Queen’s Gambit review: Netflix miniseries makes chess eminently watchable

A little girl - Elizabeth Harmon - is delivered to the Methuen Home for girls, you can actually feel the dark gloom inside as she sees her new home. Even though she has a bed right by the bathroom, you are glad that at least she is given the green dress. Her new found friend Jolene shows her how she can survive the place. She’s sharp, she picks up on everything quickly. And she discovers chess.

Mr. Scheibel (played by Bill Camp whom you saw in 12 Years A Slave) teaches her how to play the game of kings. But, he does not allow her to walk over him. He gives her a book on all the chess openings. The book is unputdownable and the girl has phenomenal talent. Plus Jolene shows her how to save the green Xanzolam pills for later when she needs to calm down. Of course Xanzolam is a made up name but there is plenty of evidence that shows how pills like Librium were once popular (now obsolete). You are alarmed and wonder where this thread is going, but it helps us understand how obsessed the little girl is with the beautiful game.

The game does hook you, and we realise how childhood addictions can become a lifelong habit. Little Beth Harmon who is not exactly social, chooses to slip away from choir to play chess. If she’s in bed, we see her play the games in her head (yes, brilliantly visualised). And, she begins to depend on the green pills. It is a sort of impending doom, a warning and you to wonder how far she goes with it.

Little Beth Harmon is brilliantly played first by Annabeth Kelly and her eyes will haunt you. The teen Beth Harmon is even better and Isla Johnston manages to convey all the teen angst and loneliness so well, you want to get inside her head to understand her. But, there is little else except chess. Her yearning for nice clothes. She has lived in that green tunic at the orphanage half her life and when she gets adopted by a childless couple because she could keep her mother company, she looks longingly at clothes other teens are wearing and clothes that are not exactly from the bargain bin.

The Queen’s Gambit forces you to examine your own life or that of your parents when they were growing up. A life with an absent father and a mother who has n0t played the piano because she is not sober enough to face long days.

The British have a nickname for the daytime cocktail of Gin and tonic which was popular among women: Housewife’s Ruin they called it. Young Beth begins to discover school is not easy when you have no use for teenage pastimes like making out in the library. But she finds out accidentally that there is prize money to be won if she enters a chess tournament. She learns to play competitively and win. The way she calmly learns the rules is a thing of joy to behold

And like her mother, you too have a smile on your face as you cheer the young woman win all her games. Winning means money, and Anya Taylor Joy who plays the grown up Beth Harmon begins to enjoy the money she makes. Obviously her confidence can be seen in her walk and her clothes. She learns to out think her opponents, and her opponents learn to unnerve her. She doesn’t lose.

Except for the wonderful Benny Watts (played by Thomas Brody Sangster) and even though she’d like to wipe the smirk off his face, she realises that he’s truly the champion. The speed chess games shown in the series are jaw-droppingly real. I tried pausing the film to understand the game, but had to stay with the story instead. And how she learns to play speed chess is a revelation in itself. Beth and her mother have such a marvelous relationship but the game dominates!

If you are like me and are amazed at how little Beth beat the high school chess club members, you will pause to check if it is true. If there was a champion like Beth Harmon. It is so real. Of course it is a story.

So well told, that I am glad to discover stories about how a young Georgian chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili was sneaked into the UK and she outplayed everyone she was pitted against and simultaneously. If you just go to the Wiki page you will be amazed at how long she dominated the sport and YouTube is filled with videos of the games she has played and won. That’s why Beth Harmon’s story gets you totally hooked.

What’s so brilliant about this series that you can actually figure out what a Sicilian Defence is, and how White plays to win. How Beth can hold her own even when playing black. The games during the championship intrigued me most.

The makers were expecting people who love the game to watch it, and it is wholly satisfying to pause the game and understand how she wins or how she loses to Borgov initially. The game is magical indeed. And, it satisfies the intelligent viewer. Chess champions have watched the series and reviewed it, so you don’t have to take my word for it.

What common folks like us will like and feel comfortable watching, is her personal story. Even though it follows a set pattern you have seen in many sporting championship movies: the hero/heroine from the wrong side of the tracks turns out to be a star at the chosen game, sacrifice their soul to win any which way they can, lose friends and family when they reach the zenith of the game and then we see their downfall.

The Queen’s Gambit also follows the same pattern. The ultimate enemy is Russian champion Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski whom you saw in Manhunt) who has never lost. How Beth learns to play him with the help of her friends in New York is a wonderful part of the series. It is brilliant even if you don’t know how to play chess.

The sporting spirit you see in the final episodes is beyond standing ovations. The crowds outside the venue, passionate about chess, learn how the game is being played inside when runners explain every move to them will overwhelm you. I never regretted not learning the game despite my family so much as I did when I watched this series. My dad still laughs at me for not learning to play the game. ‘Remember the knight who played chess with Death itself in Bergman’s brilliant film The Seventh Seal?’ He asks, ‘Chess could save lives, you know!’

I do and I hope young people will be inspired by this series to learn to play this incredibly challenging game. And Beth Harmon looks good while destroying her opponents, if that’s any help. How engrossing and captivating can this game get? Satyajit Ray told us the story Premchand wrote in a brilliant film (it starred heavyweight actors like Saeed Mirza, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan with Shabana Azmi and Fareeda Jalal). It’s called Shatranj Ke Khiladi and is available for you to view on Disney Hotstar and on YouTube. It’s a story of two friends who play chess even though the world is falling apart around them. And yes, it is incredibly fun as well.

Manisha Lakhe Is A Poet, Film Critic, Traveller, Founder Of Caferati — An Online Writer’s Forum, Hosts Mumbai’s Oldest Open Mic, And Teaches Advertising, Films And Communication.