Each time I read about The Queen's Gambit, I read about how it made chess attractive. And, indeed, as I was watching the TV show, I found myself leaning towards the same sensation that I had while reading The Defense by Nabokov: the strong desire to do something I could never quite master. To play chess. That alone makes The Queen's Gambit a successful endeavor. Because it is one thing to sell maniacs and serial killers, and quite another to sell chess.
I read about the work they put into making each game of chess a real work of art and not just a random combination of moves and pieces that would fail the most perfunctory eye test. In actual fact, the games in The Queen's Gambit are all pieces of chess history. An amazing feat, one that can only be explained by the involvement of Garry Kasparov as a consultant. But an amazing feat nonetheless. God knows, I am not able to appreciate the process - but I admire the fact.
I read about the acting and the plot which are spectacular. The stare of Anya-Taylor Joy (Beth Harmon; Bobby Fischer, roughly) is not quite the Kubrick stare, but the smug defiance is evocative and quite priceless. Marcin Dorociński (Russian grandmaster Vasily Borgov) is part boring genius part inscrutable evil. Moses Ingram (Jolene) is a world unto herself. The script is well-written and flawlessly executed to the point where I would appreciate a whole new TV series exploring Beth's childhood, trip to New York, Mr Shaibel, Jolene.
I read about the costume designs and the interiors which are, indeed, striking. Looking at The Queen's Gambit is pure undiluted joy. It is a world you want to be part of, from the wonderful music to the stylish hotel rooms that look perfect - too perfect perhaps.
However, I rarely read about the elephant in the room. Which is that the ending is so bad that it almost single-handedly ruins the whole experience. Beth flushing her pills down the toilet is nothing more than a weak cop-out that totally destroys the great story that came before. In fact, the whole Moscow sequence is so far-fetched and embarrassing that you almost have to laugh at the sheer farce of it all. And then, of course, the farce becomes unbearable when we get to the final five minutes of cheap Hollywood of the most mawkish and saccharine variety. And it is not just a bad move. In chess terms, it is like squandering a winning position for the sake of castling your king.
