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. 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. 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. 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.Īs 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). 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.
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