Queen's Gambit Is a Netflix Winner!

by Pa Rock
Television Junkie 

I can play chess, barely.  I understand the basics of how the pieces are arranged and how each is able to move, but the more sophisticated moves, such as "castling," are beyond my ken.  If I sit down and engage in a game of chess with someone, I invariably lose - and usually lose fairly quickly!

(My games' strength lies in dominoes and pinochle, games in which luck plays more of a determining factor.)

A few weeks ago I noticed that a new "limited" series called "Queen's Gambit" was trending on Netflix.  After learning that it was a fictional piece about a young woman's meteoric rise in the world of competitive chess, I decided that it would not be something in which I would have much interest.  But my son and his wife told me that they were watching the program and enjoying it.  (That would be the same son who has been beating me at chess since his age was measured in single digits!). So I still figured it was a show that would probably bore me.

Then I saw a tweet from screen legend Mia Farrow in which she offered high praise for the series - and I decided that perhaps I might also find something to like about a seven-episode endeavor focusing on international competitive chess in the 1960's.  At the very least there would probably be some great classic cars from that period driving back-and-forth across the storyline.

"Queen's Gambit" is a story about chess, but it is also a story about damaged people learning to cope, life in an orphanage, and struggling with addictions.  The central character is Beth Harmon, a girl who, at the tender age of nine, is a passenger in a car with her mother when the mother takes a notion to commit vehicular suicide.  She had been unable to find anyone to care for Beth and apparently intended to kill her daughter as well as herself.

But Beth survives and is sent to live in an orphanage, a place where each of the young residents is routinely given a daily tranquilizer in addition to any prescribed medications.  One day Beth wanders down a stairwell and finds herself in the janitor's workroom.  There she secretly watches the orphanage's custodian playing a game of chess with himself.  She makes a couple of these secret visits before approaching the old man and asking him to teach her the game.  He replies that chess is not a game for girls, but then she shows him all that she has learned from watching for a couple of afternoons - such as how the pieces move - and he relents and begins teaching her to play.

Fast forward and Beth is adopted by a childless husband and wife in Louisville, Kentucky.   The husband soon walks out on his wife and new daughter.   Beth borrows five dollars from her old friend, the custodian, so she can enter a local chess competition, and she soon finds herself as the new Kentucky state champion.   Her adoptive mother encourages Beth to enter more competitions because is represents an income stream - and it gives the mother an opportunity to travel as she chaperones Beth to the competitions.

And the process rolls on until Beth eventually finds herself in Moscow playing for the world championship.

The cast of this Netflix original limited series contained several dozen individuals, none of whom were familiar names.  The lead, Beth Harmon, was played by a twenty-four-year-old British-Argentine actress named Anya Taylor-Joy who seemed to slide seamlessly into the role of a sexually alluring chess wonk.  While Ms. Taylor-Joy has several previous credits on her acting resume, I suspect that the portrayal of Beth Harmon will ultimately be seen as her breakthrough role.

Anya Taylor-Joy was somewhat reminiscent of the amazing young actress who played the lead in "Rosemary's Baby" all those many years ago.

And yes, the cars were there also, including one highly polished, maroon, mid-sixties Chevy Corvair that triggered a flood of good memories!