Jennifer and I are two episodes into a seven-episode miniseries on Netflix called The Queen’s Gambit. We are loving it.
It’s about a young girl, Beth Harmon, who is sent to an orphanage after her mother dies and there discovers a love and extraordinary aptitude for chess. The series is set in the Unites States in the 1950s and ’60s when the idea that a little girl could be a chess prodigy was all but of unheard of. In much of the first episode Beth is ably played by Isla Johnston, pictured at left below, and then, starting when the character is 15, she’s played by the hauntingly telegenic Anya Taylor-Joy.
Though we’ve still got five episodes left to watch, I’ve seen enough to recommend the series unreservedly. It is riveting. A review by Allison Shoemaker on RogerEbert.com says,
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?
What she said.
