The Queen’s Gambit
Netflix, now streaming
Netflix can be a funny beast sometimes. The streaming service will spend gazillions trumpeting a huge big-budget sci-fi nerdfest of a series, only to cancel it after one or two disappointing seasons. Yet often, when it has a proper gem of a show on its hands, like Unorthodox earlier this year, there will be barely any hype about it at all. Now, it’s happened again with The Queen’s Gambit, a seven-part miniseries that arrived unheralded a few weeks ago, but has since become a full-on word-of-mouth smash.
It stars the remarkable Anya Taylor-joy (The Witch) as Beth Harmon, an orphaned young woman brought up in a girls’ home in the ’50s who just happens to be a genius chess prodigy, and grows up to become a global phenomenon in the chess world in the ’60s, when she takes on the big male players. The intimate yet epic saga, cocreated and directed by Scott Frank (Out Of Sight, Logan) feels so authentic and richly detailed, as Beth steadily rises up the ranks of competitive chess, I totally assumed it was all based on an amazing true story, and looked forward to reading all about the real Beth Harmon. In fact, there is no such person, and the whole thing is entirely fictional, based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis.
Unlike so many over-long, indulgent streaming series, this one clips along at a relentless pace, superbly introducing intriguing characters along the way, as well as somehow making the set-piece chess games thrillingly exciting, even if you can’t tell your pawn from your queen. Moving, funny, and entirely addictive, The Queen’s Gambit is one of Netflix’s major achievements.