The Queen’s Gambit 2020, 7 episodes, streaming Netflix.
Very enjoyable, and eminently watchable. The story itself is a touch naive and make-believe and not super plausible, but well, for all that, an excellent piece of entertainment.
SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW!
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Not wanting to be only rah-rah, I gotta register a few minuses. The very premise of the show (based on a novel) is right out of PC Wokeland, but forgivable, “women can accomplish anything”, and it would be rather crabby to attempt to dispute this. Slightly more iffy is the PC angle on the character Jolene, a black young lady, whose lines were completely implausible as a character supposedly from the 50’s and 60’s - it’s painfully strained through a PC mesh from 2020. And so on for quite a few characters. But then again, in defense, one could say not only “poetic license”, but hey, isn’t it true of ALL period pieces, that they most often are shot through the lens of contemporary mores? That’s true, but I still think there are limits to how far you can go, and to me, it was just a touch too anachronistic. Had they dialed it back just a little, I’d be completely fine with it.
The story and most individual scenes were somewhat predictable, and a bit on the nose, and not subtle, but not so horrific that you couldn’t watch.
The other obvious objection, is that for anyone who has any slightly deeper knowledge of chess, a lot of this was just nonsense and implausible. Players wouldn’t talk like that, wouldn’t play like that, etc. But really, in the interest of drama, and given the general level of chess knowledge of the audience, this is quite a minor objection indeed.
A few holes here and there also were just a bit much (f.ex. - Beth receives a call in Moscow from Benny and gang in New York, clueing her in to lines of play... ahem, the KGB would have bugged all hotel phones, so the Russian players would’ve been completely prepared for that). But again, these are pretty minor issues.
OK, with that out of the way, this was a very solid effort. It was structurally very well done - that intro in Paris, and then the extensive flashback and the wraparound back to Paris worked really well, IMHO.
A key factor in the success of this series is the acting. Really, it’s hard to find poor performances, and there are so many brilliant performances, it’s an ebarrasment of riches. The key players of course, but also absolutely astonishing Marielle Heller, Marcin Dorocinski (Borgov), Brodie-Sangster (Benny), ALL the kids (Beth at various ages, the Russian kid, other kids). WOW! The acting was out of this world!
Locations, art direction, design - tops. Costume and Wardrobe - BRILLIANT. Sfx - excellent. DP work - very nice.
Even the directon was not bad - not spectacular, but very solid.
All in all, I have to say, this is well worth watching.
My rating 8 stars out of 10. All IMHO.
Very enjoyable, and eminently watchable. The story itself is a touch naive and make-believe and not super plausible, but well, for all that, an excellent piece of entertainment.
SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW!
————————————————
Not wanting to be only rah-rah, I gotta register a few minuses. The very premise of the show (based on a novel) is right out of PC Wokeland, but forgivable, “women can accomplish anything”, and it would be rather crabby to attempt to dispute this. Slightly more iffy is the PC angle on the character Jolene, a black young lady, whose lines were completely implausible as a character supposedly from the 50’s and 60’s - it’s painfully strained through a PC mesh from 2020. And so on for quite a few characters. But then again, in defense, one could say not only “poetic license”, but hey, isn’t it true of ALL period pieces, that they most often are shot through the lens of contemporary mores? That’s true, but I still think there are limits to how far you can go, and to me, it was just a touch too anachronistic. Had they dialed it back just a little, I’d be completely fine with it.
The story and most individual scenes were somewhat predictable, and a bit on the nose, and not subtle, but not so horrific that you couldn’t watch.
The other obvious objection, is that for anyone who has any slightly deeper knowledge of chess, a lot of this was just nonsense and implausible. Players wouldn’t talk like that, wouldn’t play like that, etc. But really, in the interest of drama, and given the general level of chess knowledge of the audience, this is quite a minor objection indeed.
A few holes here and there also were just a bit much (f.ex. - Beth receives a call in Moscow from Benny and gang in New York, clueing her in to lines of play... ahem, the KGB would have bugged all hotel phones, so the Russian players would’ve been completely prepared for that). But again, these are pretty minor issues.
OK, with that out of the way, this was a very solid effort. It was structurally very well done - that intro in Paris, and then the extensive flashback and the wraparound back to Paris worked really well, IMHO.
A key factor in the success of this series is the acting. Really, it’s hard to find poor performances, and there are so many brilliant performances, it’s an ebarrasment of riches. The key players of course, but also absolutely astonishing Marielle Heller, Marcin Dorocinski (Borgov), Brodie-Sangster (Benny), ALL the kids (Beth at various ages, the Russian kid, other kids). WOW! The acting was out of this world!
Locations, art direction, design - tops. Costume and Wardrobe - BRILLIANT. Sfx - excellent. DP work - very nice.
Even the directon was not bad - not spectacular, but very solid.
All in all, I have to say, this is well worth watching.
My rating 8 stars out of 10. All IMHO.