Real Talk: “The Queen’s Gambit” Was A Pretty, Predictable Mess
By: Sara Aboulafia
Tags: Netflixoriginals, Netflix, Tvcriticism, Queensgambit, Tvshows

2020’s most beloved shlock is an awkward train wreck. There, I said it.

To have a negative opinion of something most people delight in makes a person, in the eyes of others, a wet rag. No fun at parties. A misanthropic bore. But occasionally a beloved cultural artifact is contemptible enough that to pretend either fondness or worse, apathy, is to betray a truth that bears shouting from the rooftops to save society from its own shallow-minded, blasted decay.

See, that was a bit of glib hyperbole — something that appears full of meaning and substance but is in fact pretentious bullshit. Which describes “The Queen’s Gambit” exactly.

The show that spawned a million amateur chess players pulls off one grand, inglorious move: it manages to be both entirely formulaic and completely inconsistent. Sure, the Cold War-era costuming and set design is lovely, but the cinematography itself is often ridiculous ­ — how many dramatic zoom-outs do we need of grand hotels set against large-scale, green-screened backgrounds of exotic cities? Why does dialogue written for a cast of young people read like an exchange of self-conscious, formal wooden monologues (if this is an inside joke about everyone behaving like actual pawns, I would forgive it, but alas — I don’t think that’s the case)? Just how can something so awkwardly composed manage to still be so cliché?

Beth’s pill-fueled chess hallucinations in bed are inviting vignettes, moments where a straightforward period piece gives way to something more existentially experimental. But these moments are few and far between, and I wondered why we weren’t offered more surrealistic touches when she began trouncing her competitors, or when she devolved in an alcohol-and-drug-fueled haze, or even when she was flying to different havens as a formerly-sequestered orphan. The show’s creators take a character-revealing stylistic impulse and then employ it unevenly, relying the rest of the time on superficial cues.

“How can something so awkwardly composed still be so cliché?”

Given how tight-lipped but complex Beth is meant to be (she carries abandonment trauma and so trust is a THING and she has to hold her brilliance close to her chest, I get it!), rearrangements of mid-century furniture and an evolving diva walk are poor stand-ins for her inner life. Though we’re occasionally served sudden sepia-toned flashbacks to her late mother’s boozy, advice-fueled monologues, which neatly fill in a bit more of our understanding of Beth (Never trust men! They explain everything but know nothing! You gotta do it on your own, child!), this is perhaps the only other foray into distinctive storytelling and it’s pandering and cringeworthy at best.

“An evolving diva walk is a poor stand-in for Beth’s inner life.”

We also learn that this young prodigy has an unhealthy relationship with every man she competes with. But even though this is the story the show has spent six long episodes telling us, the finale (minimal spoiler ahead), presents us with something like a 1980s-style sports movie moment, where the troupe of fuckboys suddenly band together behind her to cheer her on in the World Tournament. This may feel swell (to use era-appropriate slang), but it’s a patronizing move that is entirely out of joint with the rest of the series — a series, I’ll remind you, which is supposed to be about chess, but I don’t remember learning a thing about the game except that it makes a cool foreground for some pretty lush scenes and tense encounters.

“The troupe of fuckboys suddenly band together to cheer her on????”

All of this mess would, perhaps, be more distracting if the lead actress wasn’t so immediately captivating. Like the show, Taylor-Joy’s performance is intriguing in passing, but it doesn’t amount to more than a close-up capsule collection of smoldering, doe-eyed gazes and pursed lips (I blame the screenplay and direction, not Taylor-Joy herself, who is riveting even with thin material). All of the chic period outfits and the defiant stares that read, “Sad, glamorous genius will come out on top!” are impossible to look away from — a dependable Hollywood hook. But though the actress’s poses admittedly stir the senses (I have a pulse!), they’re not enough to redeem the thing.

Many of the show’s inadequacies are things I’d forgive and even praise in a more self-aware offering — something like the shamefully misunderstood “Ratched” from Ryan Murphy, which can bear the load of epically-wide camera shots and broad characters because it knows what it’s doing and is consistent in carrying it out. Good Camp (or, to nod to Murphy’s own preferred nomenclature, “Baroque,” highly stylized work) can play on predictable tropes, but it treats them to sensational costuming, design, cinematography, acting, and story that feels of one expertly shaped piece — one big, clear-eyed vision. Instead, in “The Queen’s Gambit,” we’re given all the grand tropes handled with utter seriousness and an uneven hand. And in a show about a game as complex as chess, it’s a shame I could predict every over-the-top, stilted move before it happened.

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