QUEEN’S GAMBIT: IT’S MORE THAN JUST CHESS

WARNING: This review contains some slight to moderate spoilers.

Queen’s pawn to d4: In chess, this opening move (for white) is known as the “Queen’s Gambit.” It is the oldest recorded opening for the game of chess, dating back to the 1490s. It didn’t gain widespread popularity until a chess tournament in Vienna, in 1873.

On the other hand, the Netflix original “The Queen’s Gambit,” based upon the novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, is a limited series rapidly gaining popularity right now, and for good reason.

Some would argue that Queen’s Gambit is a series about chess. While chess is a very popular subject in the show, I would say that it is more about coming of age, facing adversity, and finding your family.

Elizabeth Harmon, or as she prefers to be called, Beth, is played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who took the role of the titular character in the 2020 release of “Emma,” a film based on the novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Her younger self is played by Isla Jonston.

Beth is orphaned at the age of 8, in the late 1950s, and is delivered unto the Methuen Home for Girls. It is here at Methuen that she encounters two things that will form who she is for the rest of her life: chess, and drugs.

The orphanage lines girls up every morning to take “vitamins.” One of these so-called vitamins is the tranquilizer Librium, or at least a fictional version called Xanzolam (Beth later specifically asks for Librium by name).Her first experience with the drug frankly knocks her on her rear.

Under the advice of one of Methuen’s fellow residents, a colorful young black woman named Jolene (played by Moses Ingram), Beth begins to take the tranquilizers only at night, and sometimes even stockpiles them to take several at once.

One day while cleaning chalkboard erasers in the basement, she encounters the orphanage’s janitor, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp) playing chess against himself. She watches the man play for a while, mystified by the game, but eventually returns to class. Later, she sneaks back into the basement and beseeches Shaibel to teach her the game. He initially refuses, telling her that chess isn’t a game for girls.

Through tenacity and spunk, young Beth does convince Shaibel to teach her. In the first game he plays against her he uses the four-move chess win called “the scholar’s mate.” Her reaction is priceless indignation, and she demands to play again.

Time progresses, and Shaibel discovers that Beth is a chess prodigy. Meanwhile, she is using the tranquilizers at night and envisioning the chess board on the ceiling of the dormitory where she and the other girls sleep.

Things take a turn for the worse for her after she overdoses on the drug and is forbidden to play chess by Methuen’s headmistress. Time goes by for the girl, who is at the orphanage until she’s adopted at 15 years of age by Allston and Alma Wheatley. Here, she rediscovers both forces that drive her – chess and Librium.

Beth eventually enters her first chess tournament, where she meets many characters who will become lifelong friends. Harry Beltik (Harry Melling) falls to her chess prowess and her charms, alike. Twin brothers Mike and Matt(Russel and Matthew Lewis, respectively) are also impressed by her acumen with the game.

Chess becomes Beth’s entire world and is inseparably linked with her drug and eventual alcohol abuse. Many characters of the series challenge her mental state, concerned with her single-minded focus on the board and recreational pastimes. As with any good story, the protagonist must hit the bottom before she can reach the top.

And reach the bottom she does. Thankfully, those people she has encountered over the years rally around her, though many of them have been hurt by her distance, brusqueness, or even outright dismissal. Even still, the lesson learned here is that families stick together. Even those families formed from bonds of love, and not by blood.

This is the charm of Queen’s Gambit. The relationships that Beth forms, the losses she endures, and the adversities she overcomes. Fans of chess will likely appreciate the finer details that went into the story, but even those who have no knowledge of the game will find plenty to enjoy about the journey she travels.