What is it with chess players and madness? Having talked his way out of a Louisiana asylum, the 19th-century master Paul Morphy died in a bathtub surrounded by women’s shoes. A guest of more than one psychiatric ward, the Austrian genius Wilhelm Steinitz is said to have offered “pawn odds” to God. And on the list goes, from Grigoryan to Fischer. Though The Queen’s Gambit, Netflix’s wonderfully entertaining new series, declines to march its protagonist straight into a mental hospital, it nevertheless concedes that inspiration can come at a significant price.
Adapted from a novel by Walter Tevis, The Queen’s Gambit spends the bulk of its pilot in the Methuen Home for Girls, a 1950s orphanage in which 9-year-old Beth Harmon (Isla Johnston) is grieving the death of her mother. Adrift in an unfamiliar sea, Beth consoles herself with two interrelated pursuits. By day, she plays chess with Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp), a janitor who instructs her in the game that will become her life’s pursuit. By night, stoned on institutionally dispensed tranquilizers, she watches as ghostly rooks and pawns do battle on the dormitory’s ceiling.
That the opening chapter can feel sluggish at times is a consequence of the care with which showrunner Scott Frank has set his table. A veteran screenwriter responsible for such gems as Out of Sight and Get Shorty, Frank understands that the themes he means to harvest must be planted in Beth’s troubled childhood, however cramped its scope. Observing our heroine through the eyes of her increasingly astonished teacher, viewers can’t help recognizing the anger and obsessiveness that will fuel Beth’s later struggles with alcohol and drugs. Nevertheless, and despite characteristically excellent work by Camp (The Night Of, The Outsider), it is no small relief when the series departs the Methuen Home in favor of Beth’s adoptive life in the suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky.
Indeed, the episodes that follow Beth’s escape from a monotone existence are not only an improvement on the pilot but some of the most delightful television produced this year. Taken in by sweet-natured housewife Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), Beth discovers a vibrant world that the orphanage’s walls have held at bay. (The Queen’s Gambit owes a debt to Mad Men in the exuberance with which it showcases midcentury style.) Soon, Beth is devouring a string of boys at local chess tournaments, a bird of prey so pitiless that no one can withstand her attack. Though the game sequences that mark this part of the show are inventively filmed, with Frank doing everything short of embedding a camera inside a bishop, the series can only work if its anchor is both compelling and likable. Happily, Frank and company have cast in the role of the older Beth a performer who could very well be on the verge of serious stardom.
That actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, will be familiar already to audiences who recall 2015’s Puritan horror classic The Witch or who thrilled to 2020’s zany update on Jane Austen’s Emma. The lead in both films, Taylor-Joy brought to her performances a talent for immersion that ought not to have been possible given her peculiar, eerie beauty. Here, assigned a part that requires emotional range and the ability to make staring at a chessboard interesting, the actress dominates the proceedings like no young starlet since Carey Mulligan. Watching The Queen’s Gambit, I was reminded of the latter’s work in the superb 2009 drama An Education. Though the two women make use of different tricks, they share an ability to command attention without seeming to try.
As The Queen’s Gambit moves from match to match, Beth comes into contact with the men who will push her to new personal and professional heights. The first of these is D.L. Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a dashing intellectual with whom Beth enjoys an amusing chess flirtation. (“Harmon, you’re humiliating my rook,” etc.) The second, Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), is a fellow prodigy who provides crucial guidance as his rival-cum-love-interest ascends the ranks. Though other men drift in and out of Beth’s life, the most significant of all may be Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski), a Soviet champion who plays with such elegant restraint that one struggles even to imagine him losing. Having bested Beth in an early game in Mexico City, Vasily serves as the Minotaur at the center of her labyrinth, the climactic villain who is no less dangerous for all his Slavic refinement.
It is to Frank’s great credit that The Queen’s Gambit resists the temptation to turn Beth’s chess career into a mere metaphor. (“They’re just pieces,” she replies upon being asked whether the king and queen represent her dead parents.) Instead, the series leans in to the drama of each match as it unfolds, correctly perceiving that viewers will appreciate the heroine’s journey on its own literal terms. To the extent that any extra punch is needed, that energy is supplied by Beth’s attempts to conquer her various addictions. An intuitive player, Beth relies on the mental haze brought on by illicit substances. Whether she can put them aside is one of the questions that the series must eventually address.
Yet The Queen’s Gambit is not, in the end, a show about the cost of genius. Rather, its chief concern is something altogether rarer. Can a broken life, buoyed by perseverance and the loyalty of friends, be saved? Optimists in the audience will like the answer.
Graham Hillard teaches English and creative writing at Trevecca Nazarene University.
