I would agree with this assessment, which speaks to the quality of the writing - not everything was exactly tied up in a neat bow like we American audiences a primed to expect.
I’m two episodes in, and am loving it. A coming of age story about a gifted kid who is also human hits in some nice ways for me.
I’ll watch it through, but it’s just a bit . . . heavy to watch more than one in a sitting, if that makes sense. Not heavy plot wise (though it’s clearly not a romp in the park), but heavy mood/tone. It asks for a lot of emotional investment, and in these moody times, I can’t take more than an hour without coming up for air.
Some quibbles I have with it so far:
The TV/movie industry can’t manage to break from “normal female leads are classic beauties, and mentally unstable or social outsider female leads are still thin, but maybe with bangs and red hair and otherwise ‘unconventional’ but beautiful looks.” I hesitate to say this, because I’m sure as a female actor you just can’t win for trying, and Taylor-Joy is great, but she just so precisely is made to look the part of “mentally unstable heartbreaker as seen on TV”, that my wife and I both commented on it.
Almost all the adults who interact with her are so relentlessly distant to her and each other that it gets a little unbelievable, and when they do speak to her, the dialogue feels scripted and stilted. Mr. Shaibel barely speaks a word to her. Her adoptive mom says sentences that sound like someone took a “flowery prose” class and is practicing making literally every sentence sound as dramatic and erudite as possible. I appreciate that this all builds the sense of her outsider-ness, but for me it moves into eye-roll territory a few times.
The score. It’s nothing but pensive string music. Every. Single. Scene. My wife and I are watching with subtitles on, and it’s constantly flashing [pensive music]. I laughed out loud in one scene when, again, we hear the pensive dramatic chamber music playing, and the subtitles read [uplifting orchestral music]. Hah! There was not a single scored moment in the first two hours of this story that didn’t feel like “high drama”. Even unremarkable moments.
It’s a cool period piece, but (and maybe this is because literally half of what I’ve seen so far took place in the orphanage) it carries an air of victorianism in style and manner that feels out of place to me. Maybe this also relates to the score, and the color palate, which evoke other period dramas of earlier decades, but most of the first episode felt like it could have taken place 20, 30, 40 years prior without having to change much at all.
All in all, I like it a lot. But it’s just . . . precious in a way that keeps me from fully investing in it. All of my quibbles are clearly choices that were made to craft a specific mood, but it is all together together predictable, and almost comic at times in its relentless commitment to atmospheric disaffectedness.
Yes, that is pretty much exactly it. It really does well at the basics - the acting is mostly very good, the cinematography is mostly great and it hits most of those emotional buttons like a good coming of age/sports film should. I found it very satisfying to watch and it stuck with me after I finished watching it, which I think validates all the hype (by the way I found it through this thread - thanks SDMB ). Anya Taylor-Joy is probably going to have a good career. But by and large it also isn’t particularly daring or unconventional in this day an age.
Which is fine. Not every show has to be a masterpiece. I think this one will go down in history not as a “much watch” (unless you are a chess nut) but more of a “pretty good watch.” It’s not daring but the cliches, while present, are mostly not so glaring as to detract from enjoying it.
I finished the series last night. I agree with the the praise for its avoidance of common tropes (no abuse in the orphanage, etc.). I also agree that Beth would likely continue to struggle with addiction and suffer further relapses; she isn’t “cured” simply because she got it together for the final tournament.
One thing I particularly enjoyed is that Beth gradually and believably outgrew her social awkwardness. When she was cold and taciturn in the first couple of episodes, I was reminded of First Man, a film I didn’t like much because it depicted Neil Armstrong as a gigantic weirdo who would ignore anyone who tried to talk to him.
I loved the production design. They nailed the look and feel of the 1960s without constantly showing us hippies and antiwar protests. I grew up in that decade, and I’m weary of movies and TV shows implying that the whole country turned into a production of Hair. A few details felt a little “off,” like the tiny drugstore selling a chess magazine, but overall it felt very accurate.
I just saw a related article today on Judit Polgar. So please allow me to apologize and say my perceptions were wrong. Mea Culpa.
I’ll weasel a little and mention I was talking High School level. I never sniffed Grand Master level. I lost to plenty of Jr. Masters or whatever those with a rating over 1800 were called. At least one was hovering around 2100 which means he was really good but one of the greats. I think my highest rating was just barely over 1600.
So at least my school was supportive of Girls playing in competition and as our coach ran the conference that probably helped in the conference. The conference was basically 2 NJ counties as I remember.
For those here who like chess and are interested in chess analysis I came across the videos below where some of the games in the series are broken down. Interestingly, some of the games have their roots in real world competitive games although the show may diverge from them (this is pointed out in the videos).
If you love chess this is great stuff.
SPOILERS below. The person commentating tries to avoid story spoilers but, obviously, the games are spoiled.
Yes! Thank you for your well-written post, it hit on all the stuff that bugged me about this series. Much of it did seem trite and “predictable” to me but yet the main plot points weren’t actually predictable. It’s the portrayals and characters that were predictable.
And this is just me being a surly old broad but I can’t get past the fact that she very predictably got her first period right on cue. This drives me BONKERS! I’m probably extra perturbed that I had just watched an episode of “Young Sheldon” where a young teen girl, who was trying to break in to a male sport (baseball) ALSO got her first period at a critical point in her competitive life. It just made it super obvious to me that this is a well-trodden trope.
I like the show and all, but I haven’t been wowed by it. It was just a nice story for a blustery weekend to me.
After the Sheldon ep, this surly old geezer asked his wife if we could please have a moratorium on teen girls on TV getting their periods at inconvenient times? Especially in sitcoms, where the clueless dad is going to buy every product in the store, only to be helped out by a caring cashier.
One thing that I thought was interesting about the story as a whole, is that Chess is in a fairly unique place for a story about an extremely precocious woman in a field where women aren’t expected. Imagine if Beth was unbelievably gifted as, say, a dentist. Well, so what? If dental schools wouldn’t let in women (no idea if they would at this point in time), what’s she going to do? It wouldn’t do her any good at all to be the most talented int he world in a field where you have to go to a school and get a job and find people who will pay you to do that job, etc. But tournament chess (assuming the tournaments are willing to let women play at all) is basically a pure meritocracy. If she’s the best chess player in Kentucky, she will win the state tournament, period (again, barring WAY more barriers-to-gender-entry than we saw). No amount of men not taking her seriously will stop her from beating them on the chessboard.
And there aren’t too many other pursuits where that it could play out that way, particularly prominent enough pursuits to lead to some amount of fame and fortune. For most sports, it’s just implausible for a woman to beat all the men. And for some where it might be doable (auto racing, horse racing?) there’s a much higher barrier of entry than just learning from a janitor in the basement.
Interestingly, the other day I happened to be playing poker across from Mark Plotkin - a chess international master, with a FIDE rating in the 2400s. He’s been an IM for some years now, and makes $60 an hour teaching chess to kids.
This is an excellent show! I have always loved Anya Taylor-Joy. She was excellent in the film “Thoroughbreds” along with Olivia Cooke. This was also the final film with Anton Yelchin (RIP). She was also great in Split and Glass. She was tremendous in this show. I also thought the child who played young Beth was outstanding!
Beth had to overcome a lot. Both her mother and adoptive mother were not only unstable, but also mentally ill. Both her father and adoptive father were cold, distant bastards who rejected her. The staff at her orphanage were pretty rotten as well (except the janitor who taught her chess). Why the hell were they passing tranquilizers out to the kids. That was obviously criminal, but they got away with it. Actually Beth was a self-made success who received nothing from any of the adults in her life, with the exception of the janitor. She was failed by everyone else.
Those agadmator videos are good - he makes good content. I’ve always had a preference for Danny King though, and he has a few videos on the show’s games as well. He’s also done a few recently about Judit Polgar.
I think they are doing something different from each other. I prefer agadmator’s running through the games’ from start to finish noting where the game diverge.
I can see liking Danny King’s videos for offering more insight to other games which are similar at critical junctures.
What I miss from King is context. If you are a knowledgeable chess player who is already there with him then great! But if you are less experienced he kinda leaves you wondering how things got there.
There is no better or worse to this. Just different styles and who their audience is.
I’m not sure this is totally right. A lot of people treated Beth badly but not everyone and she was pretty adept at pushing away people who tried to get close. In the end, she finds she does have a friendship group who support and cherish her and this is the key to her success. First, Jolene shows up to remind her she always had a family (and let’s not pry too much into just why Beth who had money and success never tried to make contact herself); then, after Jolene has funded her trip to Russia and she is once again isolated, Townes shows up. He apologises for not coming out to her (i.e. telling a late teenager that a potentially extremely damanging piece of personal information) and we’re reminded that she walked away from him. But there he is in her moment of need. Then she gets the phonecall from Benny - who can be a bit of prick but who has come through for her now by organising the same kind of support that Burgov has, and not just himself, but other friends she’s made and ignored. The analysis that comes over the phone helps Beth organise her thoughts, but there’s also a clear emotional impact of having all these people behind her.
I also think you’re doing her adoptive mother a disservice. Yes, she modelled substance abuse as a lifestyle choice - but she supported Beth to pursue her dream, at first out of a need for income but also and ultimately to see her succeed and also gave her some important life lessons that Beth was too wrapped up in herself to take. If you watch the scene between them after Beth loses in Mexico, what her mother is saying is right and Beth would benefit from hearing it.
She also showed Beth the importance of enjoying things while they last. Sitting down to play the piano in a crowded bar not to perform but just for the enjoyment it brings is a direct analogue of Beth sitting down in the park to play with the amateurs. The relationship was a complex one and by no means perfect but it was not as cold and destructive as you make out.
I agree with @Stanislaus. If the film was making a statement about anything, it was that no one succeeds all by themselves. They always have a team behind them.
The woman who ran the orphanage wasn’t exactly the warmest lady on earth. but Beth had a safe place to live, a bed, and three square meals a day.
Beth’s mother loved her and supported her. Was she a drunk? Yup. But she was also Beth’s biggest fan, her companion, and, ya know, adopted Beth and gave her a real home. She was a wonderfully complex character, not some one dimensional gin monkey.
Beth got support from any number of chess players.