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When you read the words “Netflix limited drama series about addiction, obsession, trauma, and chess,” the first adjective which springs to mind is probably not “thrilling.” But here we are, and “The Queen’s Gambit,” Scott Frank ’s adaptation of Walter Tevis ’ coming-of-age novel of the same name, absolutely demands the use of “thrilling.” Anchored by a magnetic lead performance and bolstered by world-class acting, marvelous visual language, a teleplay that’s never less than gripping, and an admirable willingness to embrace contradiction and ambiguity, it’s one of the year’s best series. While not without flaws, it is, in short, a triumph. And it is satisfying not just as a compelling period drama, a character study, and a feast for the eyes. It’s also, at its heart, a sports movie wrapped up in the vestments of a prestige TV series. Ask yourself this: When is the last time you fist-pumped the air over chess? Isn’t that something you deserve?

Odds are that Beth Harmon (the remarkable Anya Taylor-Joy ) will earn quite a few fist-pumps as people discover Frank and co-creator Alan Scott ’s excellent series. We meet Beth as an eight-year-old (Isla Johnson) when she’s left impossibly unharmed—physically, at least—by the car crash that kills her mother. Her father’s not in the picture, so Beth finds herself at a Christian school for orphans. While there, she develops three things: a friendship with Jolene (newcomer Moses Ingram, excellent), a passion for chess, and a physical and emotional dependence on the little green tranquilizers fed to the children until they’re outlawed by the state. When she finally leaves the school, she’s got those last two things packed in her suitcase alongside a bunch of chess books, a sizable ego, some unexplored trauma, and no small amount of self-loathing. But it’s the game that drives her, sending her both to the heights of the competitive chess world and, increasingly, to her hoard of pills and the oblivion offered by alcohol.

In short, Beth has a lot to handle. Luckily, Anya Taylor-Joy is more than up to the task. Playing Beth from 15 onward, Taylor-Joy gives the kind of performance that only becomes more riveting the longer you sit with it. It’s a turn of both intoxicating glamour and precious little vanity, internal without ever being closed-off, heartbreakingly vulnerable and sharply funny, often at once. Much of the story hinges on when and how Beth is alone—and sometimes she’s most alone when surrounded by people—and Taylor-Joy’s performance is particularly remarkable in these moments. Scenes of Beth alone in her home, in a stranger’s apartment, on a plane, in her bed at night—they all hum with the kind of energy that only arises when one is truly unobserved. In this case, however, she’s creating that energy in a room full of cameras and crew members. That kind of honesty and release is the stuff of acting legend, like Eleanora Duse’s blush . It’s yet another high watermark in a young career already full of them, and somehow she’s never better than when Beth is sitting silently behind a chess board.

We’ll come back to those scenes, but it would be a mistake to assume that Taylor-Joy’s only great scene partner is the camera, gazing from across the 64 squares of the board. Frank and casting director Ellen Lewis assembled an ensemble of heavy-hitters, including the great Bill Camp as the isolated janitor who introduces Beth to the game, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Harry Melling as rivals and eventual allies in the chess world, the wonderful (if underused) Ingram, and director Marielle Heller , who gives a hypnotic performance as the fragile, damaged, compassionate woman who eventually welcomes Beth into her home. There’s not a dud in the bunch; even the actors who show up for a scene or two at most give performances that feel fully inhabited. It’s a stunner of an ensemble.

And here’s a bonus: they all look incredible. “The Crown” is rightly praised for its sumptuous, detailed production design and costuming, and “The Queen’s Gambit” will likely find itself compared to its Netflix predecessor with some frequency. But for all the strengths of “The Crown,” it rarely showcases the kind of imagination on display here. Costume designer Gabriele Binder , hair and makeup head Daniel Parker , and production designer Uli Hanisch (the latter of “ Cloud Atlas ,” “Sense8,” and “Babylon Berlin”) do much more than capture the look and feel of the 1960s in the United States and abroad. They use that aesthetic to illuminate Beth’s mindset. When does Beth embrace the wilder aspects of ‘60s makeup? Why, when she’s balancing precariously on the edge and her thick eyeliner serves to make her look even thinner and more fragile. That’s one example of many. It’s incredibly thoughtful and stylish. Consider it isolated breakdown chic.

The aesthetic of Beth’s inner world is also explored, though to detail what that looks like and what it means is to diminish some of the pleasure (and anxiety) it engenders. Just know that it lends Beth’s struggles a visceral energy that most stories of addiction tend to either take for granted or overplay. And for the most part, that care and thoughtfulness is found in all of the tropes present in “The Queen’s Gambit” (and there are plenty of tropes—this is a sports movie in disguise, after all). That said, Frank’s largely excellent teleplays do occasionally stumble, particularly when it comes to race (Jolene deserves better) and gender. The latter is a shortcoming shared with Frank’s “Godless”—both have their hearts in the right place, but are perhaps not as thoughtful or insightful when it comes to sex, love, and the realities of a patriarchal society than they believe themselves to be.

Frankly, it’s hard to get too worked up about those shortcomings thought, especially when the chess starts. The chess! My god, the chess. Like any good sports movie, this character-driven period drama lives and dies by its editing. Editor Michelle Tesoro should go ahead and buy a bookshelf for all the hardware she’s about to pick up for “The Queen’s Gambit” right now; the chess sequences are all electric, and each in its own way. One will make you hold your breath. Two will likely bring you to tears. Some are funny. Some are infuriating. Some are, somehow, very, very sexy. Each is electric, and Tesoro and Taylor-Joy make them so through skill, talent, and precision. (Some credit here is also due to chess consultants Bruce Pandolfini and Garry Kasparov. I know very little about chess, but somehow “The Queen’s Gambit” convinced me otherwise and dazzled me all at once.)

Every truly great sports story has not one, but two beating hearts. There’s the sport itself, a game or competition in which the viewer becomes undeniably invested. And then there’s the player or players, someone whose life is much bigger than the game, yet is nevertheless somewhat consumed by it. “The Queen’s Gambit” has both those hearts, and both are racing. Frank, Taylor-Joy, and company never stop telling both those stories at once, and the result is a fascinating portrait of a young woman fighting to become the person she wants to be, battling for victory and for peace. When her journey brings her to Paris, she remembers the words of a woman who loved her and spends some time wandering museums, feeding her soul with something more than chess. Yet there’s never any doubt that somewhere, in some corner of her mind, she’s got her eyes on the board. What a privilege it is to see that corner and see the world’s beauty, all at once. 

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Allison Shoemaker

Allison Shoemaker is a freelance film and television critic based in Chicago. 

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The Queen's Gambit (2020)

Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon

Harry Melling as Harry Beltik

Thomas Brodie Sangster as Benny

Chloe Pirrie as Alice Harmon

Marielle Heller as Alma Wheatley

• Scott Frank
• Walter Tevis
• Allan Scott

Cinematographer

• Steven Meizler
• Michelle Tesoro
• Carlos Rafael Rivera

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‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Review: Coming of Age, One Move at a Time

Anya Taylor-Joy plays a brilliant and troubled young woman who medicates herself with chess in Scott Frank’s mini-series for Netflix.

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By Mike Hale

Openings matter a great deal in chess, and “ The Queen’s Gambit, ” a new Netflix mini-series about a wunderkind of the game, uses its first few minutes for the purposes of misdirection. A young woman wakes up in a disordered Paris hotel room and washes down some pills with minibar booze while racing to dress for a Very Important Game of Chess. The period is the late 1960s and the vibe is Holly Golightly groovy wild child.

But “ Gambit ,” whose seven episodes premiere on Friday, pulls that particular rug out from under us right away. It jumps back a decade or so, to when Beth, the fictional future prodigy (played as a child by Isla Johnston), is placed in a Kentucky orphanage after surviving the car crash that kills her mother. It’s a repressively parochial place that keeps the girls sedate by feeding them tranquilizers from a big glass jar, but the awkward, introverted Beth finds another kind of escape when she discovers chess.

This opening episode — written and directed, as is the whole series, by Scott Frank (“Godless”) based on a novel by Walter Tevis — has an enchanting, storybook feel. Beth stumbles on the game when she’s sent on an errand to the basement lair of the orphanage’s forbidding custodian, Mr. Shaibel (a canny, finely etched performance by Bill Camp). The game immediately makes sense to her — when nothing else in her life does — and at night she runs through the moves he teaches her on an imaginary board she sees among the shadows of the prisonlike dormitory where she sleeps.

From there, as Beth (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy ) is adopted out of the orphanage and her prowess gradually gains public notice, “Gambit” proceeds straightforwardly through her teenage years, showing us how she becomes the glamorous but troubled chess pro of that opening scene. It follows the beats of a sports tale, like a classic Hollywood boxing film, but it’s also a coming-of-age story about a woman succeeding in a male-dominated world, and a restrained spin on an addiction saga, as Beth rises in the chess hierarchy on a steady diet of alcohol and downers.

Frank wraps it all up in a package that’s smart, smooth and snappy throughout, like finely tailored goods. The production has a canny combination of retro Rat Pack style, in its décors and music choices, with a creamy texture, in its performances and cinematography, that is reminiscent of another Netflix period piece, “The Crown.” (This connection is reinforced by the abundance of British actors playing the American roles, including Taylor-Joy and, as three mentors and competitors for Beth’s affection, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd and Harry Melling.)

“Gambit” never quite gets back to the charm of its Dickensian opening chapter, though, and it gets thinner as it goes along. Frank pulls off his combination of themes with a lot of old-Hollywood-style skill, but in the mix, neither the sports nor the personal-demons story line hits the levels of visceral excitement or emotional payoff that you might want. In the end, it was an admirable package that I wanted to love more than I did.

That may have had something to do with the construct around which the story is built. Beth finds a refuge in chess — it’s a predictable place where she feels safe and in control. And we’re shown why she needs a refuge, beginning with flashbacks to life with her brilliant, troubled biological mother (Chloe Pirrie) and continuing through her teen years with her alcoholic, depressed adoptive mom (an excellent Marielle Heller, who directed the female coming-of-age film “The Diary of a Teenage Girl").

Both of those elements make sense. But the question that becomes the central theme of the series — whether Beth can overcome, or even survive, the obsessiveness that powers her success and the anger that’s reflected in her superaggressive style of play — is primarily melodramatic, a fact reflected in the show’s unsatisfying conclusion.

Beth has some stumbles as she progresses from local phenom to international sensation, but they’re negligible. “Gambit” is nominally a story about overcoming great odds, but in form, it’s really a race against time: Will Beth’s remorseless rise reach a satisfying conclusion (a victory over a courtly Russian champion played by Marcin Dorocinski) before she flames out?

It’s not hard to put that out of your head and enjoy the show’s immediate pleasures, though. They include the performances of Camp, Heller, Brodie-Sangster and Taylor-Joy, who doesn’t go deep inside Beth — that would be a different show — but finds the intelligence and the humanity that lie just beneath her tics and frostiness. And Frank gives them entertaining scenes to play, as Beth gradually discovers the world — chess takes her on a journey from the Midwest to Las Vegas, New York, Paris and Moscow — and embarrassingly defeats one man after another, in chess-game scenes that are staged and shot in different, clever ways throughout the series.

If it doesn’t win you over, “Gambit” will at least play you to a draw.

Mike Hale is a television critic. He also writes about online video, film and media. He came to The Times in 1995 and worked as an editor in Sports, Arts & Leisure and Weekend Arts before becoming a critic in 2009. More about Mike Hale

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The Queen's Gambit review – from an orphanage basement to the top of the chess world

Anya Taylor-Joy plays a 64-square prodigy in Netflix’s gorgeous Walter Tevis adaptation, which – while heavy on rags-to-riches fantasy – proves great fun

A s the tale of a woman who rises from discovering the game in an orphanage basement to the pinnacle of the chess world, Netflix’s new miniseries The Queen’s Gambit can’t really fail. When it’s based on the book of the same name by legendary short story writer and novelist Walter Tevis, upon whose work the films The Hustler , The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Color of Money were also based, the odds of success seem even higher.

As such, there is plenty to like and to admire in this new, seven-part drama (starring first Isla Johnston then Anya Taylor-Joy as the prodigy Beth Harmon). We watch her become addicted both to the pills handed out – legally, apparently, in the 1950s when her story begins – to the children every day to keep them calm and compliant and, gradually, to the chess board and the control and solace it offers. Mr Shaibel (Bill Camp) introduces her to the coach of the local high school’s chess team and from thereon she is away, powering through the ranks until she becomes a giant-slaying grandmaster. Adoption by a local couple does not turn out to be the hoped-for domestic idyll, but when the husband abandons his alcoholic wife, Alma (a heartbreaking performance by Marielle Heller, more usually found directing the likes of A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me? ), she and Beth form a fragile connection that is strengthened when Alma discovers that winning chess tournaments can be quite the money-spinner. Soon they are travelling the country and then the world together, with Alma turning Beth into her drinking buddy as they go. She’s a pill-popper, too, and refilling her prescriptions provides Beth with a nice little supply of tablets of her own.

It looks gorgeous, the main performances are superb, the vital chess exposition neatly done and the true meaning of each game to Beth is made clear, whether spiritual battle, learning curve, inner reckoning, occasional flirtation, retreat from or re-emergence into the world. However, without the anchoring point of a true story behind it all, it has the feeling of a fairytale rather than the sports movie or biopic its trajectory and tropes keep pointing viewers towards. Beth’s rise is virtually frictionless. Her first loss doesn’t come until halfway through the series, her addictions don’t hamper her until even later, and as a young woman in the male-dominated world of 60s chess she meets virtually no sexism, let alone predatory behaviour. The men she faces across the board and trounces sometimes look a bit cross, but are for the most part nobly admiring, and Beth’s greatest source of annoyance seems to be the magazine interviews that keep referring to her as “a female chess genius”.

Though it tries to rise to the height of commentary – on the thin line between genius and madness, how we may be hoist by our own self-sabotage petards, whether we can hope to overcome our inner and/or our chemical demons – The Queen’s Gambit functions best and for the most part as a wish-fulfilment, rags-to-riches fantasy. Will she win again, this 64-square hustler? Yes! Will she learn and grow from her (board-based) mistakes before a Soviet superplayer and show him the colour of her money next time? Yes! What would it be like to be that good at something that young? To be born – fall to earth, you might say – with the kind of mind that vaults you immediately, unstoppably into a tiny elite and brings you global glory? Unlike chess, The Queen’s Gambit is slightly less than the sum of its parts, but you will have a great deal of fun watching them at work.

• Anya Taylor-Joy

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Netflix's The Queen's Gambit Review

Chess and lively aren’t usually used in the same sentence. But when a series comes along that’s centered around a child prodigy - in this case, Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), who arrives as an orphan at the Methuen Home for Girls after the tragic death of her mother - you can’t help but be stimulated by the premise, even if the results are uneven.

Scott Frank, Allan Scott, and William Horberg developed The Queen’s Gambit from the absorbing 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis (The Hustler and The Color of Money). But surprisingly, the seven-episode miniseries isn’t dialogue-heavy; mostly because Beth is so taciturn. Alluringly directed by Frank, who also wrote the series, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit finds its closest comparisons in Queen of Katwe and Pawn Sacrifice by centering its narrative on a woman prodigy who fights through the weight of genius.

Beth is ruthless on the chessboard. As one player surmises, she’s all attack. She strikes with a deadly accuracy born from an intuitive wit. But she can’t overcome the Russian Grandmaster Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski). As opposed to her chess pieces, he’s immovable. The drama of their matches, and Beth’s battles with other lesser opponents, are driven by Taylor-Joy’s evocative performance. Her work, much of it captured through resolute close-ups, sees her micro-expressions outwardly emitting the fury, confusion, and fearless strategies firing off inside Beth’s mind. These scenes are difficult cracks to squeeze through for Taylor-Joy, because any of these eureka moments could play as cheap theatrics. But Taylor-Joy keeps the drama as grounded as the pieces she slides across the board. The show hangs on her every deliberate glance, and she delivers.

Netflix's The Queen's Gambit Photos

Her battles are further imbued with immense gravity due to The Queen’s Gambit’s impeccable craft. The rapid give-and-go rhythms of a chess match are wonderfully on display, not only in Taylor-Joy’s electrifying performance, but through Michelle Tesoro’s captivating editing. Intuitive split screens, such as a Brady Bunch-inspired tile format, and a shot where the spaces on the chessboard become individual frames depicting ongoing matches, transform a sedentary game into a dynamic act. The sound, an element you wouldn’t expect to take on such great importance for a sport that’s as quiet as golf, makes every chess piece hit the board with the dramatic intensity of a torpedo. The action allows viewers who may know very little of this ancient game, like the difference between the Siscilian or the Najdorf Variation, to be completely immersed. Mixed with Carlos Rafael Rivera’s enchanting piano score, the close-ups of these tic-tac-toe-esque moves are breathtaking. Thankfully, much of the series operates through these enthralling matches.

The Queen’s Gambit’s supporting characters are like the pawns on Beth’s board; their purposes are limited. The custodian Mr. Schaibel (Bill Camp) is a craggy fellow who teaches her the game of chess in the school’s basement. Jolene (Moses Ingram), Beth’s black best friend in the orphanage, shows her the ropes of living in the school. She also coaxes the young Beth into savoring her tranquilizing pills (a soon-to-be debilitating habit for the young girl). D.L. Townes (there’s a sly joke in that name) is a fleeting crush for Beth, but he also falls by the wayside. Other characters suffer the same fate. They enter as fascinating figures yet diminish into passing intrigues. The script is just too slight. It’s a miniseries that’d probably work better as a movie.

Once Beth is adopted by Mrs. Alma (Marielle Heller, director of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), she becomes an outcast at her high school: The popular girls tease her for her bargain-basement attire and garish brown shoes. But when Mrs. Alma learns how much money Beth can earn from chess, the prodigy traces around the country to tournament after tournament. Their relationship heralds a tedious subplot; the perpetually sick Mrs. Alma drinks due to an unhappy marriage. A talented pianist suffering from stage fright, she’s stuck. She can only be two things: A mother or a housewife. As both, Mrs. Alma is laissez-faire: She allows Beth to drink, party, and smoke. The two don’t just bond over their shared vices, but their loneliness too. The potential exists for the subplot to crack the hardened shell of both Beth and Mrs. Alma. But even with Heller’s tender performance, very little between the pair bubbles to the surface that isn’t already floating at the top.

Muted in color and lighting — the scenes are so dark you’d wonder if anyone owned a lamp during the 60s — The Queen’s Gambit looks as dreary as a rain cloud over a scrapyard outside of the chess matches. It's an odd decision considering the hipness of the swinging’ 60s should allow for the vibrant attire to pop on even the most formal clothing. Even when Beth visits Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Paris, vivid cities with rich architecture, the municipalities are reduced to drab locales. Beth might only see the world in grey, but why must we be subjected to the same dull imagery? Ryan Murphy’s Ratched, a show set during the ‘50s, might have had a terrible story but the series had the pizzazz completely right.

The Queen’s Gambit also hasn’t met a phallic symbol it didn’t like. Take one of the many scenes of Beth lying in bed calculating chess permutations, a bird’s eye view shot shows a queen’s shadow sliding up her body. Another sees Beth calling home to her mom during a drug-filled party next to a penis-shaped candle. They’re manifestations of Beth’s eternal loneliness. There’s a mechanism inside of her that blows up her relationships before they happen. Her prohibitions arise from a gnawing fear of either becoming a housewife or relying on a man. In fact, Beth combats two adversarial men in the chess world, the nerdy Harry Beltik (Harry Melling) and the cocky cowboy Benny (Thomas Brodie-Sangster). And both float very closely to being possible lovers.

They buoy the action even when the melodrama shifts towards being overpowering. Take the final episode, when Beth confronts her drinking habit. Her struggles with alcohol and pills, fueled by the tragic memories of her biological mother’s death, would hit so much harder if they weren’t so predictable by modern storytelling standards: The number of narratives with geniuses suffering through the weight of their genius feels infinite at this point. And the way Frank utilizes Jolene as the magical black friend is even more formulaic. By the time the narrative shifts to Russia, when Beth faces Bergov for their final showdown, The Queen’s Gambit becomes something akin to Rocky IV. The previously suspicious Russians take Beth into their hearts, and it’d all be absurd if not for the inherent excitement of watching these tense chess matches.

Undeveloped supporting characters, and predictable arcs born from cheesy melodrama, often hamstring The Queen’s Gambit. Writer-director Scott Frank struggles to tease out the profound social justice themes he places on his board, such as sexism, racism, and addiction. Luckily for him, he has Taylor-Joy delivering a ruminative performance that’s as complex as any opening gambit her character employs. Meanwhile, each episode flies at a rapid pace. Even at its most contrived, The Queen’s Gambit never slows down enough to bore you.

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Netflix's The Queen's Gambit: Spoiler-Free Review

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The Queen’s Gambit is an intoxicating chess thriller

Anya Taylor-Joy’s alcoholic chess prodigy puts herself to the test in Scott Frank’s enthralling new Netflix series that proves again that the novels of Walter Tevis are fertile ground for adaptation.

6 November 2020

By  Kim Newman

▶︎ The Queen’s Gambit is on Netflix  in seven episodes.

The slender output of American novelist Walter Tevis (1928-84) divides equally between literary yet page-turning novels about niche competitive sports and dystopian science fiction. It’s always puzzling and stimulating that one writer produced source material for superficially different yet classic auteur films – Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961), based on Tevis’s 1959 novel about pool, and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), based on the 1963 novel.

Now Scott Frank’s Netflix ‘limited series’ adapts Tevis’s 1983 novel about a female chess grand master. In an apt fusion of previous screen Tevis protagonists, the huge-eyed Anya Taylor-Joy is at once as obsessive and savant-like a game-player as Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie Felton in The Hustler and as alien-seeming and lost on Earth as David Bowie’s Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The thread that binds the strands of Tevis’s work is alcoholism: he described writing about an extra-terrestrial visitor marooned on our strange planet as a way of self-diagnosing the long-term effects of his drink problem. Taylor-Joy’s Beth Harmon is a portrait of an alcoholic woman on par with Piper Laurie’s in The Hustler and Candy Clark’s in The Man Who Fell to Earth (she even, in some lights, resembles both). The heroine’s self-destructive, raggedly glamorous behaviour – at her lowest, she dances alone in her underwear to Shocking Blue’s Venus while necking bottles of wine – matches Bowie’s similarly fashion-conscious dissolution. However, after Beth’s fall to Earth she reassembles herself for a rematch against Soviet champion Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski), who has the status in the chess world that legendary pool player Minnesota Fats does in the halls of The Hustler.

The plot of The Queen’s Gambit parallels The Hustler, building through preliminary rounds and bildungsroman flashbacks to a climax in which the contender – after losses and humiliations and strokes of good and bad luck – faces her nemesis on the best form of her life and wonders whether that’s still good enough. If it seems a foregone conclusion in sports movies that the young gun will best the old pro, it’s worth remembering it doesn’t turn out that way in The Cincinatti Kid (or Rocky, for that matter).

For Tevis, the player’s first opponent is always themself. Beth survives a tough orphanage childhood after her mad genius mother’s suicide, learning her game from a reclusive janitor (Bill Camp), then adopted by another erratic drunk (Marielle Heller). She sashays out of the 1950s into the 60s, with cool soundtrack and fashion choices, involved with a succession of opponents who become coaches, crushes, lovers or gun-barrel notches. Taylor-Joy pursues her own star character actress arc, from the haunted child of The Witch to the Austen heroine of Emma, and reaffirms her position – obvious even in fare like Morgan and The New Mutants – as one of the most distinctive presences in contemporary cinema and TV .

Tevis writes brilliantly about chess – a less obviously film-friendly game than pool – and Frank devises a variety of stratagems to reproduce the tension as Beth plays many, many games over the course of seven episodes. Only once stooping to using her sex as a distraction – straying across the room doing odd little dance moves in a match with a little Russian boy who, like most of the men who face her across a board, is wonderstruck but underestimates her.

In film, chess games usually cover for fatalist philosophy (The Seventh Seal) or flirtation (The Thomas Crown Affair). Here, they’re most of the plot and fascinating as battles of the mind even to a viewer who barely knows the moves.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster is eccentric as the cowboy-hatted, knife-toting, country-talking kid who’s the American master before Beth comes along, but a great many character actors sketch vivid personalities with little or no dialogue, expressing themselves through studied stone faces and the minimal gestures of rigidly-defined moves. Like great chess (or pool), it’s exhilarating to watch and mastery is easy to miss.

As a writer, Scott Frank has always been interested in mutant kids – as far back as Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate (1991) and as recently as Logan (2017). As a writer-director, he has made solid genre fare (The Lookout, A Walk Among the Tombstones) for the cinema and become one of the first auteurs of the Netflix era, specialising in ambitious miniseries. The Queen’s Gambit follows the western Godless, set in a town populated after a mining disaster mostly by widows, and is extraordinarily assured.

One of its strengths is knowing when to leave a good thing alone – much of the dialogue is word-for-word what Tevis wrote (Rossen and Roeg did that too) – but this might serve as a textbook example of that hybrid new form, somewhere between a TV serial designed to be consumed in instalments and a seven-hour movie suitable for watching straight through.

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‘The Queen’s Gambit’: A Female Bobby Fischer Keeps Her Challengers in Check

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

In the great 1993 chess movie Searching for Bobby Fischer , elementary-school-age prodigy Josh finds himself caught between two mentors: Bruce Pandolfini, an aloof master of the game who favors a slow and risk-averse approach to the board, and Vinnie, who hustles tourists in the park and is always encouraging Josh to play as swiftly and boldly as he can.

The real Bruce Pandolfini was one of the technical advisors for The Queen’s Gambit , a new miniseries about a female chess genius coming of age against the backdrop of the Cold War. (He fulfilled a similar role for the 1983 Walter Tevis novel upon which the Netflix show is based.) So it doesn’t feel entirely coincidental that this version of the story operates at a measured pace. You can practically hear Vinnie grumbling about how this TV take is playing not to lose, rather than to win.

Oh, the story seems to start off at breakneck speed, beginning with Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) in a swank Sixties Parisian hotel, popping pills to chase away a bad hangover as she rushes to appear at a press conference about her latest tournament. This, though, is a fakeout: the now-exhausted in media res opening TV writers use when they don’t have confidence that the actual beginnings of their stories are exciting enough. Quickly, we jump away from that glamorous teaser(*) to wade through a whole lot of backstory about young Beth (played at first by Isla Johnston) growing up in a Kentucky orphanage where she and the other girls are heavily medicated.

(*) Almost as frustrating as the use of the in media res device itself is that, by the time we finally return to Paris in a later episode, it’s clear this isn’t a crucial moment in Beth’s story, but simply the one best suited to engage the viewer before the show hit rewind. 

Pandolfini, of course, was only hired to offer advice on the chess matches themselves for the book and the show. Complaints about the pacing are better placed at the feet of Scott Frank, who directed every episode and adapted Tevis’ book with Allan Scott, and who has become one of our preeminent champions of the idea that television should simply be constructed as “movies, but longer.”

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Frank actually worked in television early in his career; one of his first credits was a Season One episode of The Wonder Years . Mostly, though, he’s been a terrific writer of genre films like Out of Sight , Minority Report , and Logan . Looking to direct more, he couldn’t get a movie studio to make Godless , his script about the rivalry between two Old West outlaws, set against the backdrop of a frontier town populated entirely by women. So, he sold it to Netflix as a seven-episode miniseries. Godless , released in 2017, has a lot to recommend it. Frank elicits magnetic performances from Jeff Daniels, Merritt Wever, and Michelle Dockery. It’s gorgeously photographed throughout, with several shots jaw-dropping in their composition and staging, and has a rousing action climax. It’s also quite palpably a feature film idea that Frank expanded because he could, and not because the story was best served at that size(*).

(*) Seven hours wound up being almost exactly the wrong length for Godless . The outlaw feud didn’t have enough material to adequately fill that many episodes, while the story of the female-run town still got short shrift. Either contracting or expanding it would have worked better. 

But Godless won several Emmys (including trophies for Daniels and Wever), and inspired Frank to bring The Queen’s Gambit to Netflix after Allan Scott (who has been trying to get a movie made ever since Tevis’ book was published) approached him about directing. And the end result is similar: an aesthetically beautiful project with several superb performances, all in service to a story that starts to feel padded long before the end comes.

There’s a degree to which the orphanage scenes are designed to be slow, the better to illustrate how Beth is withering away there from the narcotics and the cool discipline of administrator Helen Deardorff (Christiane Seidel, one of several Godless alums sprinkled through cast and crew). But the point has been well and truly made long before Beth discovers that custodian Mr. Shaibel (the great character actor Bill Camp) plays chess games against himself in the orphanage’s cramped basement. You don’t need to have seen any other chess films — or, for that matter, any stories about precocious talents with gruff older mentors — to know how this is going to go. But Camp plays Shaibel with such gravity, and such obvious, if reserved, affection for this lonely girl, that Beth’s apprenticeship is fascinating even while the other orphanage scenes are repetitive in the extreme.

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Taylor-Joy soon takes over as Beth, and while she’s not especially convincing as a 15-year-old — much less one whom the orphanage passes off as even younger to attract adoptive mother Alma Wheatley (played by A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood director Marielle Heller) — she proves a spectacular camera subject for Frank and director of photography ​Steven Meizler​. Her face is all oblique angles jutting against a pair of saucer-sized eyes that have to tell a lot of the emotional story, since Beth isn’t much on talking. Between her physical features, the auburn hairstyle crafted by Daniel Parker, and the increasingly stylish mod fashions Gabriele Binder puts her in as Beth’s fortunes rise, Taylor-Joy pops in every scene, even before other characters watch her play and learn what Mr. Shaibel realized about her as a girl: “To tell you the truth of it, child, you’re astounding.”

The early episodes meticulously chronicle Beth learning the game and then establishing herself on the local chess scene. There’s a bit of an underdog flair to these sequences, given how male-dominated the community is, and how no one in her new personal life seems to know or care about chess. Frank and his collaborators (including editor ​Michelle Tesoro) find interesting ways to construct the tournament scenes — one uses the chess board itself to frame simultaneous matches, for instance — but they run out of new ideas before they get to the last big game. And Beth’s utter domination of opponents who treat her as a novelty loses its capacity to surprise well before the competition starts to take her seriously.

Still, Taylor-Joy’s sheer charisma and range go a very long way, as does the obvious fun Frank is having in blending chess drama with Cold War spy iconography. You may not love mod Sixties hotel architecture as much as Frank and production designer Uli Hanisch so obviously do, but you will likely enjoy many of the gliding shots through these joints as Beth rises from local obscurity to international celebrity, all the way to a big showdown with her Soviet rival. (The soundtrack mostly manages to avoid the era’s greatest hits, but can’t resist Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” in a later episode.)

But Frank and Scott ultimately don’t have enough to say about Beth’s struggles with addiction, mental illness, and the isolation of true genius to sustain the story across seven long episodes. Nor do they take advantage of the extended time to better fill out the world around her. Some supporting players, like Thomas Brodie-Sangster as the cocky reigning American champ Benny, make quick impressions, while other characters and relationships feel underfed. There are hints of a romance between Beth and handsome rival player Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), but then he vanishes for a long stretch before being treated as an important part of the story’s endgame. And the script never quite reckons with the contradictory nature of Beth having difficulty socializing even while her friends (particularly Moses Ingram as orphanage roommate Jolene) are unwavering in their devotion to her — as if they wanted their fictional, female version of Bobby Fischer to have a happier life than the real one, but didn’t put in all the work to show how she would get it.

Many of these problems would have been alleviated had Frank made The Queen’s Gambit as a film, or even done three or four episodes rather than seven. As with Godless , a lot of this story’s flaws and superficiality only become obvious because of how long it lingers, while the parts that are excellent (Taylor-Joy’s performance, the technical mastery) wouldn’t be diminished in a more abridged version of the tale.

As Beth teaches her adoptive mother about the game, Alma observes of the tournament audiences, “I’ve noticed the moves they applaud loudest are the ones you play rather quickly.” If only The Queen’s Gambit had kept that in mind.

Netflix releases all seven episodes of The Queen’s Gambit on October 23rd.

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‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ Starring a Magnetic Anya Taylor-Joy, Is a Shrewd Study of Genius: TV Review

Following the astonishing rise of an unusual chess prodigy, Netflix's new limited series is a welcome change of pace.

By Caroline Framke

Caroline Framke

Chief TV Critic

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In order to be a truly great chess player — not just a good one, but one of the greats — you need to possess a canny combination of concentration, acuity, and nerve. What seems like a simple board of 64 squares quickly becomes a battlefield; the key to winning the ensuing fight is being able to analyze and anticipate an opponent’s moves without your face betraying a single calculation. Chess is such a mentally punishing, esoteric game — which makes it extremely hard to portray onscreen with half the thrill it might have in reality, especially if the viewer doesn’t know all the rules (and chances are, you don’t). But “The Queen’s Gambit” manages to personalize the game and its players thanks to clever storytelling and, in Anya Taylor-Joy, a lead actor so magnetic that when she stares down the camera lens, her flinty glare threatens to cut right through it. Most crucially, the series uses chess as its engine for a more complicated narrative about female genius, the allure of addiction and the gift of autonomy. 

From writer and director Scott Frank (“Logan”), and based on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel, “The Queen’s Gambit” tells the story of a taciturn orphan whose unflinching demeanor and analytical brain reveal her to be a lethal chess prodigy. When we first meet 9 year-old Beth (Isla Johnston) in   Kentucky circa the early ’60s, she’s adjusting to life at a Kentucky orphanage while quietly mourning the sudden death of her mother (Chloe Pirrie). Then, a chance encounter with the custodian (Bill Camp) introduces her to chess, and it’s as if the game unlocks a secret room within her own mathematical mind where everything makes sense, a place where she can be safe and in control. That Beth discovers this about herself at the same time as the orphanage is giving her a daily tranquilizer only intensifies her obsession. She spends years lying awake at night, high as a kite, staring at her ceiling where ghostly apparitions of chess boards appear to let her play as many games as she wants. In these moments, “The Queen’s Gambit” almost becomes an “Alice in Wonderland” story — except in this case, the heroine is an unsettling orphan playing chess on her ceiling through a drugged fog. 

The series, written and directed entirely by Frank, sometimes threatens to get overwhelmed by these breaks in reality and format, and the CGI chess pieces are only occasionally as sinister as they’re supposed to be. At the show’s bluntest moments, Beth’s time in the orphanage and early childhood flashbacks often feel like they’re of an entirely different show. But as Beth grows up (and is subsequently played by Taylor-Joy), “The Queen’s Gambit” becomes very shrewd about its choices and keeps the narrative going at an impressively fast clip — making it a sharp, welcome contrast to the all too many lethargic streaming dramas out there. 

Unfolding over seven episodes, the limited series follows Beth’s rise to the top of the competitive chess world and all the work she does and the suffering she endures to get there. Growing up, her closest ally is the custodian and her bunkmate Jolene (Moses Ingram); once she leaves the orphanage, her confidante becomes her adoptive mother Alma ( Marielle Heller ), a lonely woman in need of company outside her spiteful husband. Ingram makes the absolute most of sometimes clunky dialogue (Jolene is the only major non-white character in the series, and it shows). And while Heller’s mostly known for her patient, empathetic directing of films such as “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” she brings the same qualities to her acting here, deepening Alma’s characterization into something so painfully tender she might as well be a walking bruise. Both flesh out characters that most obviously show Frank’s limits as a writer, giving them welcome depth beyond the page.

While Jolene and Alma get the closest to cracking Beth’s heart, she’s otherwise constantly surrounded by men. She resents that fact being pointed out to her with every chess match she obliterates, but with her shock of bright red hair and increasingly glamorous wardrobe (courtesy of costume designer Gabriele Binder), Beth also takes some pleasure out of drawing everyone’s intrigued eye. Along the way to the top, she collects the hearts of men equally frustrated and enthralled by her: a sincere local boy (Henry Melling), a fellow cocky prodigy (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), a kind-eyed writer (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) who comes the closest to stealing her heart right back. Even the steely Russian champion (Marcin Dorocinski) whose face rarely moves an inch finds himself drawn to this strange girl and her astonishing mind. Countless chess matches begin and end on Beth’s face as she stares coolly across the board at her opponent, waiting for the moment she can strike him down. In most actors’ hands, these scenes would become too boring for words. In Taylor-Joy’s, they’re mesmerizing.

It’d be easy for the show to indulge too much in Beth’s allure and make her some sort of Manic Pixie Dream Genius, and it doesn’t always resist the temptation. But more often than not, it dives deep enough into her psyche and reveals enough weaknesses that she’s never invincible or unknowable. She’s a mastermind, but also an angry obsessive with a healthy ego and a love for obliterating herself before anyone else can do it to her. She wants to win, but more than that, she wants some place — someone — to call home. When “The Queen’s Gambit” gives both Beth and Taylor-Joy the room to tap into the twin veins of her fury and longing, it’s the best kind of bildungsroman. What could’ve just been a clever show quickly becomes a portrait of a special, flawed person that reveres her fire as much as her brilliance.

“The Queen’s Gambit” premieres Friday, October 23 on Netflix.

• Crew: Executive producers: Scott Frank, William Horberg, Allan Scott.
• Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling and Bill Camp.

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One Good Thing: Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit makes chess mesmerizing. Really!

The seven-episode miniseries shows why Anya Taylor-Joy is one of the most exciting actors working today.

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Chess shouldn’t be all that interesting to watch on screen, for probably obvious reasons. The game involves a lot of people sitting and staring at a board, moving pieces around in quiet contemplation. And unless you’re a major chess fan, the moves the players make won’t immediately make sense in the way a baseball player hitting a home run does.

But something that is interesting to watch onscreen is a great actor playing a compelling character who has a lot going on in their mind. A close-up on the actor’s face as the wheels turn in the character’s head can be gripping because attempting to think your way out of a problem is something we all have experienced.

So the smartest choice Scott Frank makes in adapting Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit into a seven-episode Netflix miniseries is to focus not on the chess but on his actors’ faces, particularly that of his star. As chess prodigy Beth Harmon, Anya Taylor-Joy gives one of my favorite performances in ages. And Frank shows an understated confidence in relying not on fancy camera tricks but on close-ups that watch the star’s slightly too-wide eyes flicker with recognition as she finds the move to trounce yet another challenger.

The central conflict of the miniseries isn’t Beth vs. a world that keeps underestimating her, as it seems to be on its face. The central conflict is the viewer vs. Beth, as you try to find your way inside her rapidly whirring brain, and almost do, before she shuts you out again.

Beth is an orphan in 1950s Kentucky, who discovers an abiding love of chess almost by accident, thanks to a gruff old janitor (Bill Camp) who works at the orphanage she is sent to after her mother dies in a car accident. (Isla Johnston plays Beth as an orphaned child before Taylor-Joy takes over the role when Beth turns 15.) But when Beth is adopted by a middle-aged couple in the early 1960s and encouraged by her adoptive mother (Marielle Heller) to pursue her chess hobby further, she rapidly starts climbing the ranks of the world’s best players.

That’s kind of it, so far as the story goes. The Queen’s Gambit is an underdog narrative —nobody expects a woman to be good at chess! — meshed with a coming-of-age character study. How much of Beth’s motivation stems from the uncertainty of her childhood, of her adoption, of her bouncing from an orphanage to public school as a teenager? And how badly do the addictions that she develops to pills and alcohol, almost as part of her training, hinder her progress?

Her traumas and her addictions must drive her on some level, but at no point does she monologue painfully and at length about how losing her mother pushed her to be better. She just has to be better because she has to be better. If she ever stopped and looked too closely at the reasons she behaves the way she does, she might completely fall apart.

Taylor-Joy is one of my favorite performers working today, and she’s exceptional here. The best chess players in the world know when they’ve won or lost dozens of moves ahead of the game’s completion. Thus, chess very much is a game of faces, and Taylor-Joy’s cerebral acting meshes perfectly with Beth’s story. She’s an actor of micro-expressions, of flickers of eyes and twitches of lips, and what makes The Queen Gambit such a good fit for her is the way she keeps both the viewer and Beth’s opponents at arm’s length.

Competition stories are often a great way to do character studies, especially when the competitions are one-on-one. Weirdly, the story I thought of most often while watching The Queen’s Gambit was Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film Raging Bull . The surface resemblance between the two is faint, but they’re both about self-destructive, preternaturally talented people who wrestle with the gendered expectations of the society they exist in, with top-notch performances from actors at the height of their craft.

I spent most of The Queen’s Gambit nervous that the miniseries was going to become a story about Beth having to learn how to be a woman or something because she has turned off so much of herself to focus on being great at chess. But Frank’s scripts focus not on something so clichéd but on Beth stubbornly hammering at her own humanity until it fits the peculiar circumstances of her existence. The series is about how the mere fact of her being a woman causes other players to underestimate her, but only on its margins. By the time she’s credibly competing for the US championship, everybody takes her seriously. The Queen’s Gambit is not a story about a woman overcoming the odds to show the world her girl power; it’s a story about a woman overcoming the odds to understand herself. (And lest I leave the impression the series is all Taylor-Joy, the entire cast of the miniseries is perfect.)

It’s also a miniseries about chess, one that slowly but surely teaches you important truths about the game, so that by the time Beth is playing the much-vaunted Soviet chess players, you get the gist of the games, even if you don’t grasp each and every nuance. You’ll understand just why it’s advantageous to play white instead of black, but you’ll also understand how the built-in disadvantage black holds reflects some of the ways Beth sees herself, even if she would never say that.

Another movie I thought of while watching The Queen’s Gambit was Mike Leigh’s terrific 2008 comedy Happy-Go-Lucky . What I love about that movie is that its central character — an extraordinarily kind and, well, happy-go-lucky woman — doesn’t undergo some awkward character arc in which she realizes the world is darker and more cynical than she expected. Instead, she forces the world to realize the viability of her point of view.

The Queen’s Gambit has flaws. It’s maybe a little too long. Frank is perhaps slightly too enamored of watching his star cavort around in her underwear. And the series’ one major character of color (Beth’s Black best friend Jolene, played wonderfully by Moses Ingram) is a thankless role. But The Queen’s Gambit also has a healthy dose of Happy-Go-Lucky- ness at its core, in a way that almost makes it a mirror image of that film. Beth Harmon forces the world to reckon first with her talent and then with her pain. The world bends around her in turn, without pressuring her to be anything she’s not. Sometimes, that’s enough.

The Queen’s Gambit is streaming on Netflix . For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the One Good Thing archives.

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Movies | ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ review: Irresistible…

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Movies | ‘the queen’s gambit’ review: irresistible coming-of-age drama. no prior chess expertise required..

Everything that works in writer-director Scott Frank’s highly bingeworthy adaptation of “The Queen’s Gambit,” which is most everything about it, comes from treating Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel just seriously enough.

Set in the 1950s and 1960s, the show has been streaming for a week now, and it’s the sort of sleek, classy escapism that makes the recently announced Netflix price hike seem like no big pandemic deal. No less so than “Enola Holmes”or the dreaded “Holidate,” to name two other Netflix diversions, this one offers a wealth of angles and entry points for a broad audience, teenaged girls among them. “The Queen’s Gambit” may be rated TV-MA but, aside from some occasional rough language amid a lot of drug use, the story operates as a sleek, wish-fulfillment fairy tale. I recommended it to the 15-year-old in our house; we’ll see what she says about it.

The tensions start on the chess board and ripple out from there. They’re driven by a compelling tough nut of a heroine, risking addiction as well as her sanity in her meteoric rise in international chess circles. Like “Whiplash,” or a calmer version of “Black Swan,””The Queen’s Gambit” leans into its protagonist’s magnificent, punishing obsession.

“People like you, you’re two sides of the same coin,” as her mentor, played by the marvelous Bill Camp, tells young Beth, played by Isla Johnston as a preteen and the series star, Anya Taylor-Joy, as a teenager and young adult. “You’ve got your gift. And you’ve got what it costs.”

Young Beth sheds one life (with a troubled, suicidal mother) for another, at the orphanage where she meets, among others, her one true friend Jolene (Moses Ingram). A few years later, Beth’s adopted by a nearby Lexington, Ky. couple on the marital skids. Marielle Heller, the actress now best known as an often inspired director (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”), emerges as a key supporting player as Beth’s adoptive mother. They come to know and understand each other, gradually. They’re fellow artists under the skin. Also, both understand the seduction of pills and liquor all too well. (Heller’s character refers to her little green and white pills as “my tranquility medicine.”)

Flashbacks of her earlier years haunt Beth throughout. At the orphanage, she learns chess from the stoic janitor portrayed unerringly by Camp. It’s her lifeline or her curse, depending. “The Queen’s Gambit” charts her progress, her blinkered devotion to the game, and an eccentric, beautifully cast array of friends, occasional lovers and once and future chess adversaries, as Beth moves from regional triumphs to national to Mexico City, Paris and Cold War-era Moscow.

Taylor-Joy is terrific. She has been for years now, certainly since the 2015 wonder “The Witch.” She makes Beth, who rarely misses anything, a sphinx whose secrets we’re let in on from the start yet remain fruitfully mysterious and subtly suggested. The character, as concieved in the novel, doesn’t really extend beyond two dimensions (she’s either reckless train wreck, or tightly coiled, laser-focused opponent) into a third. But the scenes and eventual travels with her mother are delightful, and as Beth’s chess world friends and confidantes roll back into her life, years later, “The Queen’s Gambit” creates a satisfying circularity.

A few nits. Nobody, and I mean nobody, talks like they’re from Kentucky. The cinematography undercuts the first-rate production and costume design with a penchant for heavy-handed, copper-colored period tones. The final episode delivers in spades, though a mite shamelessly. Small matters. The fun throughout, the payoff, is in seeing Beth yank the rug out from one misunderestimating lunkhead and authority figure after another.

Frank’s earlier screenwriting credits include such pleasing, off-center winners as “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty” and “Minority Report.” Faced with a steady stream of chess matches to dramatize, he accomplishes more modestly what Martin Scorsese did so grandly in “Raging Bull”: He gives each square-off a different visual personality and approach. Through it all, Taylor-Joy’s singular, wide-set gaze betrays flickers of confidence, panic, assurance, doubt, depending on the moment.

The results aren’t “important,” or “improving.” They’re just pretty irresistible.

Three and a half stars (out of four)

Rating: TV-MA

Running time: 7 episodes, apprxomately 6 hrs., 30 minutes

Screening: Now on Netflix.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]

Twitter @phillipstribune

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The Queen's Gambit: That ending explained and all your questions answered

Is the Netflix show based on a true story? Let's go through all those key details and more.

• Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards

Anya Taylor-Joy in The Queen's Gambit.

If you're still buzzing from Beth Harmon's triumph in The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, let's dive even further into the excellent miniseries. We'll hopefully have all your questions covered, from whether the show's based on a true story of a chess prodigy to what a "Queen's Gambit" is exactly. 

Read more : The Queen's Gambit could be a game changer for women's chess

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Young Beth learns chess from Mr. Shaibel, her orphanage's janitor.

Is it based on a true story?

While The Queen's Gambit comes across as an inspirational sports story, it's an adaptation of a 1983 fictional coming-of-age novel of the same name written by American novelist Walter Tevis. Tevis was a chess player himself and consulted real-life chess masters to ensure he accurately depicted the intricacies and rules of professional chess. So no, Elizabeth Harmon isn't based on a real orphaned chess prodigy from the '50s and '60s. But if you're looking for a female chess player to read up on, Judit Polgar of Hungary is generally considered the strongest female chess player ever.

What's the Queen's Gambit?

In chess, a gambit is an opening move in which the player will sacrifice pieces to later gain a positive position. According to The Chess Website , "The Queen's Gambit is probably the most popular gambit and although most gambits are said to be unsound against perfect play the Queen's Gambit is said to be the exception." It's the move Beth uses in her final winning match against Vasily Borgov, the Russian world champion. "The objective of the queen's gambit is to temporarily sacrifice a pawn to gain control of the center of the board."

How does Beth's real mother die?

When Beth was 9, her real mother Alice committed suicide by driving into an oncoming vehicle. She first drives to Beth's father's house, where his new wife answers with their young son. Alice asks Paul for help with taking care of Beth, but Paul frantically rushes her away from his new family. He says she can come back another time and they'll talk, but it's been five years since they last saw each other and he's clearly moved on. With nowhere to take Beth, Alice attempts to kill them both in the crash. Beth miraculously survives, but suffers from emotional issues throughout her life.

Beth and Benny Watts.

What pill does Beth take?

At Beth's orphanage, the Methuen Home for Girls, the children are given tranquillizer pills to make them compliant. When a law is passed forbidding this and Beth's pills are taken away, she suffers withdrawals and continues to struggle with her addiction to the drug.

How does Mrs. Wheatley die?

After her whirlwind romance with pen pal Manuel in Mexico City ends, Mrs. Wheatley doesn't show up to Beth's match with Borgov. Beth returns to her hotel room to discover Mrs. Wheatley dead. The coroner expects it was hepatitis, an inflammatory condition of the liver. Mrs. Wheatley was an alcoholic, running up a huge bill on margaritas at the hotel.

How does Beth beat Benny Watts?

The first time Beth plays Benny Watts, the reigning US champion, at the US Open in Las Vegas, he defeats her. Later, with the help of ex-Kentucky state champion Harry Beltik, Beth learns to study her opponents and the big games in their careers, instead of just relying on her intuition and improvising in the moment. She buys a copy of Chess Review with a feature on Watts and asks him questions about himself in person, like why he carries around a knife (he says it's protection from "whatever"). In the final match of the US Championship in Ohio, Beth swiftly defeats him in 30 moves. She allows him to play the same move he played to defeat her the first time -- trading queens -- but this time she's prepared.

Beth and Borgov.

How does adjournment work?

When Beth plays her final match against Borgov in Russia, he requests they adjourn until the next day. This means he must write his next move on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. The director will then kick off the next session with the prepared move. This ensures neither player knows what the board will look like when it's their next turn.

Why does Borgov want to adjourn?

In the final match between Beth and Borgov at the Moscow Invitational, Beth appears to be the more tired of the two, after playing several long matches in a row. But it's Borgov who requests they end the session and pick up the following day. This decision could point to Borgov's interview in a tape Beth watches while training with Harry, where Borgov talks about coming up against people half his age, like Beth, and doesn't know how long he can continue winning. "I can fight against anyone but time." It's possible he too is tired and calls the adjournment, something a player could do after the first 40 moves have been played. Before the arrival of chess-playing computer programs that can be used to analyze adjourned positions, games that didn't finish within 5 hours were adjourned automatically. Borgov, possibly already feeling threatened he'll lose, probably retreats to consult the other Russian players -- Beth stumbled upon Borgov helping previous world champion Luchenko in the adjournment of their match a day or two before.

Do the actors actually play chess?

The highly detailed  chess sequences were put together by chess coach Bruce Pandolfini (who consulted on the original novel), with advice from Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov. They likely used chess engines, computer programs that analyze chess positions and generate a list of strongest moves, as well as faithfully matching scenarios in the book and drawing from real games. For example, Beth and Borgov's final match, up until a point, is based on a game between Ukrainian Vasyl Ivanchuk and American Patrick Wolff at the Biel Interzonal chess tournament in Switzerland in 1993, according to chess YouTube channel agadmator . While that game ended in a draw, Beth ends up finding a different move that leads to her win. Borgov's standing to applaud Beth after she wins is a reference to a famous match between defending champion Russian Boris Spassky and American opponent Bobby Fischer at the 1972 World Championship in Iceland, depicted in the 2014 film Pawn Sacrifice. When Fischer wins, Spassky joins in with the audience's applause.

What's the response from the chess community?

The Queen's Gambit has been generally praised by critics. Though it's received good reviews from chess players, a criticism has been aimed at the exclusive use of men's games as the basis for its fictional contests. "The Queen's Gambit is so brilliant but using some women's games would have been awesome," former US Women's Chess Champion Jennifer Shahade tweeted .

What does the show get wrong about chess?

According to chess master Irina Berezina , The Queen's Gambit does an impressively accurate job of depicting chess games. But there's one thing it takes artistic license with: talking during chess matches. Normally, the etiquette is that you talk only to say check, checkmate or offer a draw. Beth has a little more to say than that, making sure to tell Harry Beltik, for example, that she doesn't think he can escape checkmate. "Maybe. If you'd gotten here on time."

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Who's Iepe Rubingh?

The Queen's Gambit is dedicated to Iepe Rubingh, the inventor of chess boxing, who died aged 45 in May this year of unknown causes. Chess boxing is a hybrid sport, where competitors compete in alternating rounds of chess and boxing.

Will there be a season 2?

Beth overcomes her demons to finally defeat her greatest rival, bringing her story to a satisfying conclusion and not seeming to tee up more for a second season. Though the actors,  including Anya Taylor-Joy , have said they're open and willing to return to their characters in future episodes, showrunner Scott Frank, whose adaptation of Tevis' book finishes at the same point as the source material, doesn't sound like he has ideas in mind for more material.

"This was the single best experience I've had in a 30-some-odd year career full of really nice experiences. So it's saying a lot," the writer-director told  Entertainment Weekly . "I have no idea how people are going to take it, but it's the first time I'm willing to admit just how happy I am. Normally I'm afraid to ever say that."

"Maybe we can just let the audience imagine what comes next," Executive Producer William Horberg told  Town & Country .

Read more : Tenet: That ending explained and all your questions answered

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The Queen's Gambit plays familiar moves with style and star power: Review

Anya Taylor-Joy is stunning as a self-destructive chess prodigy in Netflix's solidly entertaining miniseries.

Darren is a TV Critic. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFranich for opinions and recommendations.

I like chess, I like '60s fashion, and I like Anya Taylor-Joy . So I was a cheap date for The Queen's Gambit , Netflix's new seven-part miniseries streaming Friday. Taylor-Joy plays Beth Harmon, an outcast teen chess prodigy who becomes a grown-up celebrity chess casualty. Writer-director Scott Frank tracks her from a dingy orphanage cellar to globetrotting duels against Soviet supermen. It's a stylish period piece with the rambling-years momentum of a John Irving novel. Luscious production design and a darkly fascinating lead performance duel against mawkish sentiment and a messy final act. It's always fun to watch, even when it's playing emotional checkers.

The series begins with Beth hungover and half-sunk into a bathtub. She's in a palatial Paris hotel room; the place looks trashed. She gets dressed, notices someone in her bed, pops some pills, and races downstairs. Flashbulbs pop in her face. The whole world press is there, watching her play the Russian grandmaster Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski). They make a sharp contrast. He's a stern middle-aged communist, somehow looming and invisible, followed everywhere by his KGB retinue of bodyguard-jailers. She's glamorous, undone, afire, and lonely. It's a great opening, rife with conflict: America, Russia, woman, man, youth, experience, druggy hedonism, rigid professionalism.

Alas, it is a prologue flash-forward, the hottest story idea of 2006. Queen's Gambit kind of earns its backstep. The first episode circles to a younger Beth (Isla Johnston), shellshocked after her mother dies in a maybe suicidal car crash. She arrives at a midcentury Catholic orphanage. Those three words suggest nightmare possibilities, but here the abuse is all chemical. Orderlies stuff the kids full of state-mandated tranquilizers. Beth is getting high on Orphan's Little Helper right as she discovers chess. Downstairs, somber janitor Mr. Shaibel ( Bill Camp ) plays solo matches on his ratty board. He starts teaching Beth the basics, and realizes he's found a queen.

Every episode takes another step forward in Beth's chess career, her coming of age, and her addiction spiral. It's a familiar biopic trajectory, though the source material is a novel by Walter Tevis. Taylor-Joy is at her best playing Beth as a kid with a Vulcan-ish awkward confidence. She lets you see how the chessboard is an escape for a confused young person and a kind of religion, offering "an entire world of just 64 squares" to someone whose inner life is full of murky confusion.

Beth winds up adopted by the Wheatleys, a married couple whose heavily patterned house looks like the mausoleum of '50s America. Dad Allston (Patrick Kennedy) is distantly busy. His wife, Alma ( Marielle Heller ), grieves a never-quite-explained loss by retreating into daylight drinking and perpetual television. When she realizes her adopted daughter has a lucrative chess habit, she sparks to life. Heller's performance is astounding, a world-weary match for Taylor-Joy's anxious curiosity. Alma becomes a supportive manager, yet there's something overly vicarious in her interest. She's being a good mother — and turning a teenager into her drinking buddy.

Everyone knows how to play chess, right? We've all seen The Wire ? Frank has a lot of director-y fun staging Beth's duels. There are split-screens, fourth-wall staring contests, time-lapse montages of pieces moving. Taylor-Joy's hands move so fast, I kept rewinding to figure out if the video was sped up. (I think it's just gusto.) I enjoyed the wonkish specificity of Beth's strategic evolution from blitzkrieg attack to patient lateral defense. You sense that Frank is unsure just how much strategy the audience will take, and he makes some dramatic sports-movie leaps. The important games are always a spiritual dual, elaborate flirtation, and/or a private reckoning with flashback sorrow.

What works better is how the miniseries brings the whole chess subculture to life. It's an environment of cerebral swagger, diffident competitiveness, and geek love. Beth starts off playing smartly dressed young weirdoes in cafeterias, where everyone whispers longingly about a Kentucky champion named Harry Beltik (Harry Melling). Rising the ranks, she meets national contender Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), a beatnik cowboy who carries an ornamental knife. Brodie-Sangster has a lot of fun as the coolest kid in nerd club, brandishing his very own Sports Illustrated cover story and yearning for the USSR's enlightened chess culture. There are lushly art-directed arenas in Las Vegas and Mexico City, and Beth's interactions with her fellow players to take a few diagonal soap opera turns.

In Split and The Witch , Taylor-Joy's wide eyes exuded a paranoid gothic quality; she looked like what would happen if Emma Stone saw dead people. Her recent work has edged into droll comedy. All that and more comes into play here. Beth's an intellectual superhuman and an internal wreck, struggling with memories of her brilliant yet unsettled biological mother even as she nonchalantly dispatches egomaniacs. Queen's Gambit occasionally tries to expand into a larger tale of femininity, so many woman carrying hidden bags of clinking liquor bottles. The storytelling can turn a bit prosaic, though, and there's a point where all the dialogue is some kind of we-get-it warning about the dangers of obsessive greatness. Taylor-Joy adeptly plays high-functioning addiction, and I wish, I wish, I wish that her drug trips didn't involve giant chess pieces hanging down from the ceiling. Bad, digital effects, bad!

Frank's screenplays extend back a generation, from splendid '90s crime ( Get Shorty , Out of Sight ) through essential blockbusters ( Minority Report , Logan ). Netflix snared him for 2017's Emmy-winning Godless , and now the streaming service is basically employing him as a miniseries auteurist-in-residence. I heartily recommend this show, even if the last couple hours feature overt clichés and ever-blander dialogue. Queen's Gambit will be remembered as the final star-making moment for Taylor-Joy, before her movie career rockets fast and Furiosa -ly . The story is literally about an ingenue rising to global fame. But Taylor-Joy excels in the quiet moments, her eyelids narrowing as she decimates an opponent, her whole body physicalizing angry desperation when the game turns against her. The king might be in trouble. Fortunately, the queen has all the best moves. B

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ On Netflix, Where A Young Chess Prodigy Deals With A Crippling Addiction

Where to stream:.

• The Queen's Gambit

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Monsieur Spade' On AMC/Acorn TV, Where Clive Owen Is A Retired Sam Spade Solving A Brutal Killing In The South Of France

'monsieur spade' episode guide: how many episodes are in clive owen's amc crime drama, stream it or skip it: 'lessons in chemistry' on apple tv+, a period drama about science, sexism, cooking, and falling in love, netflix unveils online games for 'queen's gambit,' 'money heist' & more original shows.

The late Walter Tevis wrote  The Queen’s Gambit all the way back in 1983, a year before he died of lung cancer. It seemed like the novel was just as hot a property with Hollywood as his other novels, like  The Hustler and  The Color of Money . But it took 37 years to find its way to the screen, but it seems like it’s arriving at a good time, when viewers are looking for a nice, meaty limited series to binge. From what we can see, this is going to be that kind of series.

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We hear someone knocking on a hotel room door, asking for a “Mademoiselle” in French. A woman climbs out of a bathtub, where she supposedly passed out.

The Gist: The woman, hungover after a night of god-knows-what, opens her curtains, retrieves her shoes from the bar pulls herself together and runs down to the master chess game that she’s participating in. Her name is Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy). We soon go from Paris in 1967 to Pennsylvania in the ’50s. Nine-year-old Beth (Isla Johnston) is left unscathed after a car accident that killed her mother Alice (Chloe Pirrie), and since her dad is nowhere to be found, Beth is is sent to an orphanage called The Methuen Home.

There, she’s greeted by the overly-friendly headmistress Helen Deardorff (Christiane Seidel), and one of the first things she does is get uppers and downers (i.e. “vitamins”) from Mr. Fergusson (Akemnji Ndifornyen). There she also meets an older girl named Jolene (Moses Ingram) who enjoys flouting the rules, like not taking the “vitamins” when given and liberally calling people “cocksucker.” But, as expected, she feels lost and adrift.

She wanders into the basement one day and sees the custodian, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp) playing himself in chess. Beth knows nothing about the game but is fascinated. As she learns to take the tranquilizers at night, she envisions chess openings and moves on an upside-down board she envisions on the ceiling. She keeps going down to the basement to play him on Sundays; every time she improves in leaps and bounds, to the point where she eventually beats him.

Seeing her remarkable ability, Shaibel invites the chess coach from the local high school to see for himself. After playing her, she invites her to his club to play every member simultaneously. She wipes the floor with them, but not before jonesing for the green “vitamins”, which are locked away after the state gets wind of what the orphanage is doing. As withdrawal gets to her, Beth takes desperate measures to get those vitamins.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Though based on Walter Tevis’ novel and not real-life people,  The Queen’s Gambit gives off that same regal vibe that we’ve seen on  The Crown . The addiction-fighting-with-genius story, though, goes way back to Sherlock Holmes, all the way through period dramas like  The Knick .

Our Take: Though we don’t see a lot of the adult version of Beth in the first episode of  The Queen’s Gambit , we were sucked into her story anyway, mainly due to the performances of Johnston and Camp. Camp is especially good at playing the gruff custodian, smarter than anyone at the school realizes, who is content with sitting in the basement nipping from a flask and practicing opens and defenses.

Allan Scott and Scott Frank have done a fine job of adapting the long sought-after 1983 novel and exploring the phases of Beth Harmon’s life as she rockets up the ladder of the professional chess world while simultaneously battling a crippling addiction that may or may not help her game. We know that her mother was a mathematician that became a suicidal recluse due to drugs, mental illness or both, so it’s not a stretch that Beth may suffer from those same tendencies.

It’s fascinating to see that her addiction was kicked off by her orphanage’s highly questionable policy of drugging their residents. No one at the orphanage is portrayed as downright evil, but they are just creepy enough to put us in Beth’s wary shoes. Even the fact that Shaibel is down in the basement all day playing chess is creepy, but the gruff custodian is actually the warmest character at the orphanage, because he sees Beth’s individual genius, whereas everyone upstairs just sees her as another annoying kid.

What this sets up, of course, is Taylor-Joy taking over as the teenage and adult Beth, figuring out how to navigate the chess world. The first episode was engrossing enough to make us curious to see where the story is going, and that’s a whole lot more than we can say about 95% of the opening episodes we’ve seen this year.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Beth, desperate for the green pills, breaks into the room where they are and starts gobbling them down by the handful. Then she grabs the huge glass jar they’re in, just as she’s caught. She drops the massive jar and then passes out.

Sleeper Star:  Moses Ingram does a lot with a little screen time as Jolene. She’s both a good and bad influence on Beth, but the only one at the orphanage that seems to want to buck the system, which brings out the rebel in Beth.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing we could see.

Our Call: STREAM IT.  The Queen’s Gambit opens up a world that feels inscrutable at times, told through the eyes of a prodigy who embraces her genius, but is as human as the rest of us.

Should you stream or skip #TheQueensGambit on @netflix ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) October 23, 2020

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream  The Queen's Gambit On Netflix

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The Queen's Gambit (2020)

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The Queen's Gambit: Miniseries Reviews

There's something a little Twin Peak-y about Harmon's drug-addled world, but it is not a genre show either. This is a series about a kick-ass little girl who becomes a superhero in a highly-competitive man's world.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2022

When you start dreaming about chess after watching a single episode, you'll know you're hooked.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2022

Anya Taylor-Joy is absolutely impressive in a show that glows with trust in the filmmaking process. A story around self-stimulation, power of mind, adversities, forgetting what's written and the danger of the uncontrolled. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 30, 2021

A glamorous Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't show the true cost of addiction - but rather a rose-tinted view of womanhood and paint-by-numbers redemption.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 8, 2021

While the chess matches themselves were exhilarating to witness-yes, they really were-it was the relationships Beth forms throughout the series that truly gave this stunning period piece unexpected soul.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2021

The absence of villains, especially for an American show portraying Cold War era Russians, complements the dignity of the show.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2021

Chess may be the central subject of this spectacular Netflix series, but make no mistake in thinking that The Queen's Gambit is solely about this game of strategy. It's about so much more.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 29, 2021

An empowering tale about a female chess prodigy that, thankfully for amateurs, does not get bogged down in fine details and is still satisfying to those who do know the game.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2021

...an instant classic, as meaningful to the literate over-thinker as to casual audiences, and exactly the kind of original project that rarely seemed to find purchase in cinema over the last few decades...

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 10, 2021

Jury's out, but it's one of the best series of the year, I would definitely say so. Well-crafted and directed.

Full Review | Jan 19, 2021

Not the best series Iv'e ever seen, but it's really up there. Well-crafted and fun.

It may be a surprise that a show about chess has become one of Netflix's most-streamed shows of the past couple of weeks. But it shouldn't be -- not when it is filled with standout performances and its chess competitions play out like boxing matches.

Full Review | Jan 16, 2021

Raise your hand if you anticipated a coming-of-age, period-piece drama about a female chess prodigy in the 1950s and 1960s becoming perhaps the most addictive and binge-worthy series of 2020.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2021

Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't make a single false move in The Queen's Gambit.

Full Review | Dec 30, 2020

It is a show that takes itself so seriously that, when former child actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster turns up dressed like an escapee from the Wild West, you don't know whether it's meant to be funny or not

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 29, 2020

Written and directed by Scott Frank, an Oscar nominee for his "Logan" script, "Queen's" is electrifying. Frank's direction is full of quick cuts, artful framing and beautiful shots.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 29, 2020

Yes, this is a series about a chess player, but it is more about her journey there and the heavy and deep emotions that take you through the path is what makes this a must-watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 29, 2020

It's a terrific, emotionally intelligent hour of television - one that refuses to distinguish between the cost of sporting immortality and the price of human history.

Full Review | Dec 29, 2020

One of its strengths is knowing when to leave a good thing alone - much of the dialogue is word-for-word what Tevis wrote.

"Alma's not pathetic, she's just stuck," says Beth about her adopted mother. I can't think of a better way to summarize this unfortunately arrested miniseries.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Dec 29, 2020

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‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Review: Beyond an Impeccable Anya Taylor-Joy, Netflix’s Tricky Ploy Pays Off

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“The Queen’s Gambit” is quite the risky proposition in itself. The seven-part Netflix limited series features an emerging star in Anya Taylor-Joy ; the breakout best known for her work in horror hits like “The Witch” and “Split” is already a favorite of critics and youths alike. And yet if her captivating performance is already a given, the surrounding story’s allure is anything but. Scott Frank ‘s adaptation of Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel focuses on a subject typically deployed in film and television as a metaphor, usually by mature writers and aimed at a similarly senior audience. Chess, after all, is rarely described as a young person’s game.

Nor is it particularly compelling to watch. Small wooden pieces being slowly slid around a tabletop doesn’t easily lend itself to absorbing cinema, especially given the challenging nature of the game itself. “Pawn Sacrifice,” “Computer Chess,” and even the Pixar short “Geri’s Game” earned praise for their depictions, but none set the world on fire.

“The Queen’s Gambit” may be the exception. It deserves to be, and Frank’s last limited series certainly was, when he took another out-of-fashion genre — the western — and turned “Godless” into a sizable hit (considering its cultural impact ). That same delicate attention to character, sterling production design (via “Babylon Berlin’s” Uli Hanisch), and excellent performances from a well-chosen cast turn his second Netflix limited series about chess into an absorbing coming-of-age story with more on its mind than what’s on the board.

Take, for instance, its opening tease. Employing the tried-and-true flashback structure, Frank’s story starts in 1967 Paris, as a young woman (Taylor-Joy) wakes up and drags herself out of the bathtub, scrambles to put herself together in her trashed hotel suite, and knocks back a few pills with an airplane bottle of vodka before racing downstairs for her chess match. When she sits down across from her opponent, memories race through her head, and the story starts over 10 years earlier, where Beth Harmon (played by Isla Johnston as a 9-year-old) is orphaned by a car crash and sent to live at the Methuen Home for Girls.

In and of itself, this preview of what’s to come doubles as an assurance of what kind of story you’re watching. You know Beth will become a chess star. You know she’ll do so while struggling with addiction. Very soon after the time jump, you even know how her mother died and what happened to her father. “The Queen’s Gambit” isn’t a mystery, nor is it framed like a traditional sports story; you know she’s going to win — if not all, then most of the matches she plays — so the suspense isn’t derived from the games themselves. It comes from how she wins and why.

An intimate character portrait (though not at all a true story), “The Queen’s Gambit” embraces its main players so warmly it seems like any one of them could’ve carried their own series. Bill Camp plays Mr. Shaibel, the orphanage custodian who teaches Beth how to play chess via secret basement training sessions. Camp, one of our finest character actors , is arguably the third most prominent figure in the limited series, even though he maybe gets in a few dozen words. Mr. Shaibel is reserved and private; it’s only through Beth’s stubborn curiosity that he even relents to teaching her the rules, and their time transcends instructional commands on just a few well-placed instances. Yet Frank’s script and Camp’s fine-tuning make him easily relatable, understood, and deeply felt; Camp’s muted reaction to taking a picture with his prized pupil substantiates a telling moment that could’ve otherwise been forgotten.

Yet just as your attachment to Mr. Shaibel peaks, Beth is whisked away to her adopted family, and Marielle Heller, as Beth’s new mom, becomes a more-than-fitting replacement parent , er, presence. Heller, who’s better known of late for her directorial feats in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “Can’t You Ever Forgive Me?” and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” turns in a performance that should make her as sought-after for acting roles as directing gigs. As Alma Wheatley, Heller plays a housewife made to be complacent by her flighty and demeaning husband. Mr. Wheatley (Patrick Kennedy) is always on the road and appears to have only adopted Beth in order to provide his wife with another in-house project to keep her busy.

Again, Frank’s script and the performance of it come together to finely examine the type of person Alma has become without restricting who she really is to those stereotypes. Plenty of ’50s housewives suffered the way Alma does, yet her individuality blossoms as she and Beth embark on adventures — touring the country to compete in chess tournaments, each daring to dream beyond the four walls or tiny house provided them by society.

Seeing this relationship develop is blissful entertainment on its own, but “The Queen’s Gambit” remains Beth’s story as well as Taylor-Joy’s showcase. Light on the kind of big, showy Acting scenes that draw attention to themselves (and awards voters), Taylor-Joy trusts the character, the context, and her own command to keep viewers enamored, and it works beautifully. Being so focused on the here and now helps keep audiences there with her, as many unspoken moments — especially during chess matches — only connect because of her richly detailed process. Taylor-Joy understands that people are watching her in order to grasp what’s happening in her competitions, and Frank trusts her to handle silent exposition via a quick glance or slight curl of her typically straight face. Moreover, as Beth gets older, wiser, and more confidant, Taylor-Joy subtly transforms the way she walks, the way she reacts to the world, and the way she absorbs new information. It’s so natural it’s easy to overlook, but growing up onscreen is hard, precise work, and this young talent makes it look easy.

“The Queen’s Gambit” still suffers from structural issues and a few minor pacing problems. With this many chess scenes, it’s unsurprising redundancies appear, though it’s typically not the matches that feel repetitive. A loose middle section seems like it’s been cut into episodes based on time limits rather than definitive arcs (like Frank wrote a long movie instead of a short TV show), and there’s a cleanliness to the series’ resolution that feels a bit at odds with its messy central figure. That being said, the ending is a rousing success. Frank manages to tie many of his once-disparate pieces together for a climax that’s too satisfying to tarnish with plausibility problems; how badly you want to see these moments play out should transcend any complaints about all-too-fitting writerly bookends.

Frank’s second limited series is another risk and another unexpected charmer. To say the actors’ steal the show is both true and a tad flippant toward the measured work from every department that makes these seven episodes sing. Time will tell if viewers young and old will appreciate “The Queen’s Gambit,” but they absolutely should.

“The Queen’s Gambit” is streaming now on Netflix.

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'The Queen's Gambit': This Netflix miniseries about chess is one of the best shows of 2020

Even in a year as bleak as 2020 , the right TV show can come along and happily surprise you. 

Smart, enthralling and a little sexy, "The Queen's Gambit" has jumped to the No. 1 spot on Netflix in the U.S. for good reason – it's just that good. Even if it's about chess. 

Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, "Queen's" (streaming now, ★★★½ out of four) follows the rise of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (a stunning Anya Taylor-Joy ), a Kentucky orphan in the 1960s who learns the game from a janitor (Bill Camp) in her orphanage's basement. As a teen, she makes her way onto the international chess circuit, traveling the globe and handily beating men twice her age. She also spends that time battling addiction, a much harder fight for Beth than any chess match. 

Thanks to Taylor-Joy's performance, a strong supporting cast and the right balance of trials and triumph, "Queen's" is a surprisingly gripping adventure (yes, a chess adventure) that still manages to find levity and happiness. It's a show that seems tailor-made for our joy-starved minds in a somber modern world. It might make even the most skeptical among us take dust-covered chess sets out of the basement

More: Everything coming to Netflix in October: From more 'Schitt's Creek' to plenty of horror

The series begins with Beth as a quiet 9-year-old who has just been orphaned by a car crash and is delivered to a depressing orphanage that hands out tranquilizers like candy to keep the kids docile. She quickly discovers that stockpiling them, and taking multiple doses a few nights a week, leads to exciting highs. One day, she walks in on the janitor playing chess against himself in the basement, and is drawn to the game. He teaches her the rules and is awed by her natural talent. She spends her nights popping pills and imagining chess games on the ceiling of her dormitory, one of many arresting visuals in "Queen's" over the course of its seven episodes. 

As a teenager, Beth is adopted by the Wheatleys, an unhappy married couple. While the husband spends weeks on "business trips" out West, Beth gradually bonds with her new mother, Alma (Marielle Heller), a functional alcoholic. Beth wins local chess tournaments, and after Alma discovers how much money her new daughter can make, she acts as Beth's agent and manager, pulling her out of school so they can travel to national and international tournaments. 

More: 50 best TV shows to watch on Netflix right now: 'Evil,' 'Schitt's Creek' finale

As she rises through the ranks of professional chess, Beth becomes entwined with her almost exclusively male opponents. There's Harry Beltik (Harry Melling, best known as Dudley in the "Harry Potter" movies), who becomes obsessed with Beth after she beats him for the Kentucky state title at age 15; D.L. Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a dashing older player who immediately catches Beth's eye; and Benny Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), an American champion who initially dismisses Beth's talent before eventually helping to train her to take on the world's best chess players, the Soviets. 

Written and directed by Scott Frank, an Oscar nominee for his "Logan" script, "Queen's" is electrifying. Frank's direction is full of quick cuts, artful framing and beautiful shots. Paired with the superb score, "Queen's" gives the series' many chess matches near Olympic tension and gravitas, as exciting as any great sports film. 

But "Queen's" wouldn't sing without Taylor-Joy, who turns in one of the best performances of her already celebrated young career. Her expressive face and even more expressive hand movements are a key part of what makes the chess matches so mesmerizing. She fits so perfectly into the 1960s fashions and mannerisms that she may well have been born in the wrong decade. 

The supporting cast is also terrific, especially Heller as Alma, who acts as both an enabler and support system for her surprisingly smart adopted daughter. Known mostly for her work as a director ("A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Heller makes Alma so much more than just another disillusioned housewife. Newcomer Moses Ingram, who plays Jolene, Beth's best friend from the orphanage, also stands out brightly in a limited amount of screen time. 

There have been many films and TV shows about geniuses and the burden and costs of a great mind, but few with a woman's story at the center. Beth is as messy, mean and ultimately brilliant as the likes of John Nash (Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind") or Will Hunting (Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting"). 

Beth Harmon could probably beat them both at chess. 

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The queen's gambit, common sense media reviewers.

Young female chess prodigy struggles with drink and drugs.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Beth stands up for herself and isn't afraid to be

Though Beth rises to top of her field in male-domi

Beth's mother struggles with suicidal urges, cause

A few scenes of couples in bed having sex; nudity

"Damn," "hell," "c--ksucker," "f--k."

Children in an orphanage are given tranquilizers t

Parents need to know that The Queen's Gambit is a fictional series about a young female chess prodigy in the 1960s. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, it deals with themes including mental illness, suicide, and addiction. Young children in an orphanage are shown being given tranquilizers (apparently legally)…

Positive Messages

Beth stands up for herself and isn't afraid to be a rebel when she needs to be -- this strength is a quality that both helps and hurts her.

Positive Role Models

Though Beth rises to top of her field in male-dominated world of chess, she's also a troubled person who battles serious addiction issues. She has trouble relating to others, can alienate people with her seemingly obsessive pursuit for victory. Still, she's a very driven woman who stands up for herself when need be.

Violence & Scariness

Beth's mother struggles with suicidal urges, causes a seemingly intentional car crash with Beth in the backseat. Beth deals with some verbal bullying from popular girls in school.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A few scenes of couples in bed having sex; nudity implied but not graphic.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Children in an orphanage are given tranquilizers to keep them docile, causing chemical dependence in some children. Beth enjoys the pills, often takes more than prescribed so she can hallucinate at bedtime -- at one point even stealing more pills and overdosing. Her adoptive mother, Alma, is a functional alcoholic who encourages Beth to become her drinking buddy. Scenes of Beth guzzling wine and spirits, as well as smoking weed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Queen's Gambit is a fictional series about a young female chess prodigy in the 1960s. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, it deals with themes including mental illness, suicide, and addiction. Young children in an orphanage are shown being given tranquilizers (apparently legally), but they also take them recreationally. The lead character struggles with drug and alcohol abuse, an issue that is furthered when her adoptive mother turns her into a drinking buddy. There are some simulated sex scenes, but no nudity. Occasional harsh language includes terms like "damn," "hell," "f--k," and "c--ksucker."

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (20)
• Kids say (76)

Based on 20 parent reviews

Beautiful period piece with a strong female lead

Best mini series ever, what's the story.

THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT centers on young Beth Harmon ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), orphaned at 9 when her brilliant but troubled mother, seemingly on purpose, crashes their car and dies. She's sent to live at The Methuen School, where the children are made docile with a daily dose of strong tranquilizers, pills that Beth soon learns to squirrel away and take for recreational purposes. Under the begrudging tutelage of a gruff janitor, she learns to play chess and displays the skills of a legitimate prodigy, besting male players many years her senior. Over time, she grows increasingly competitive, traveling the country and world with her adoptive mother and enabler Anna ( Marielle Heller ). As she matures, her fixation with chess is rivaled only by her troubles with drugs and alcohol -- an addiction that may ruin her before she achieves her goal of besting her fiercest opponent, the Russian champ Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorocinski).

Is It Any Good?

Some elements of Beth Harmon's story stretch credulity, but this is an absolutely gorgeous-looking fairy tale, well-acted enough to gloss over some of the less believable aspects. It's not the fact that she's a chess genius that's hard to swallow, but the way this happens in the 1960s, yet she appears to face very little conflict in terms of male acceptance as she rises the ranks. Some male players scoff at the idea of a female entering their field, sure, but she's almost immediately met with respect and admiration, even if there is a touch of envy in it.

Like many savant-centered stories, this one (which is based on the novel by Walter Tevis) attempts to examine the complexities of fame and genius -- the idea that someone has to be a little "crazy" to be exceptional, and how detrimental that can be to one's personal life. But even Beth's substance abuse problems don't truly threaten her until far into her career, as she is aided in her growing reliance on booze by her adoptive mother/agent Alma. This relationship is perhaps the most interesting in the series, and Marielle Heller -- better known as the director of films like Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood -- gives a nuanced performance full of pathos and genuine warmth; she should absolutely be acting more often. Anya Taylor-Joy does wonderful work here also, her still face and expressive eyes hinting at the deep pain and drive bubbling under the surface. The series may ultimately be a rags-to-riches fantasy and not so much the deep drama it aims for, but darn if it isn't a great one.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why the people around Beth are shocked that she is so good at chess, and at such a young age. Is it her gender, or maybe the time period? How different might the chess world look if more girls were encouraged to play?

What is it about playing chess that Beth finds so attractive? Given what we know about her biological mother, how might her obsessive fixation on the game relate to the "thin line between madness and genius" that she's warned about by others? Do you think this is a real thing?

Families can talk about chess. Why do you think it's remained popular over such a long period of time?

• Premiere date : October 23, 2018
• Cast : Anya Taylor-Joy , Bill Camp , Thomas Brodie-Sangster , Chloe Pirrie , Marielle Heller , Marcin Dorocinski
• Network : Netflix
• Genre : Drama
• TV rating : TV-MA
• Awards : Emmy , Golden Globe
• Last updated : September 14, 2023

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