“Pawn Sacrifice” and the Tragedy of Bobby Fischer (Short Review)

Bobby Fischer movie One of the challenges for director Edward Zwick in Pawn Sacrifice (2015) is that he was making a movie about a board game where the main character is not very sympathetic. But Zwick lives up to the challenge, with the movie recounting chess genius Bobby Fischer’s rise to prominence and chess champion, while also showing Fischer’s struggles with paranoia and mental illness.

Pawn Sacrifice begins with a short scene of Fischer, played by Tobey Maguire, at the 1972 world championship against Russian Grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). And then it takes us back to Fischer as a child with a growing fascination with chess. The movie then follows the chess prodigy as he rises to the championship stage, revealing Fischer’s mental problems and the importance of his game for Americans and Soviets during the Cold War era.

The movie does an excellent job telling the story of this piece of American history, while giving some insight into Fischer. For me, I wanted to know more about the man beneath the chess and the madness, but the movie instead focuses on the link between the latter two without much deviation from that path.

Similarly, even though Pawn Sacrifice follows the real-life history pretty well and does a good job at getting the story right, one also may gain insight from Liz Garbus’s excellent documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011). That documentary retraces much of the same story using real footage.

Yet, a dramatized movie can take us places that a documentary cannot. And Pawn Sacrifice is at its best in the little moments, such as when Schreiber shows a human side of Spassky and when we see Fischer’s interactions with lawyer Paul Marshal (Michael Stuhlbarg) and a chess-playing priest friend Fr. Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard). It is these interactions that made the movie for me and made me wish for more about Marshal and Lombardy.

Ultimately, Pawn Sacrifice is an interesting and entertaining movie for anyone interested in the 1970s and the sad story of Bobby Fischer. Rotten Tomatoes gives Pawn Sacrifice a 72% critics rating and a 75% audience rating.

Bonus Bobby Fischer: If after seeing Pawn Sacrifice you are in the mood for another movie about chess, check out the excellent movie Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), which is not about Fischer but another real-life childhood chess prodigy, Joshua Waitzkin. Finally, for another perspective on Bobby Fischer, check out this appearance with Bob Hope not long after Fischer won the world championship.

What did you think of Pawn Sacrifice? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Low Budget Sci-Fi & Much More in “Robot & Frank” (Short Review)

    robot & frank There seems to be a small trend of some independent films using science fiction elements, usually with little special effects, to explore universal themes. Films like Another Earth (2011), Melancholia (2011), and The Man from Earth (2007), dwell in a setting that looks normal but with a small twist. Each shows that science fiction may be used to explore the human condition without a big blockbuster budget. The latest to join this trend is Robot & Frank (2012), directed by Jake Schreier and starring Frank Langella.

    Robot & Frank is set in the “near future,” so that easily explains why everything looks like today, except for fancier cell phones and some occasional robots, including the “Robot” in the title who is voiced by Peter Sarsgaard. Langella plays Frank, a former burglar who is gradually losing his memory. His son worries about him, so one day he brings him a robot to look after him. Frank is resistant to the robot but he gradually warms to the new house guest, who not only cooks and cleans but who also may be useful in some local thievery.

    The film is largely a character study with some meditations on aging, changing technology, and memory. Langella is excellent as always, as is Susan Sarandon. The movie may not bowl you over, and it did not go as deep into the themes as I might have liked. But it has a little suspense and subdued humor throughout. If you are looking for a sci-fi action film, you may want to look elsewhere. But if you are just trying to find a decent entertaining movie before the big Fall movies arrive, check out Robot & Frank.

    Other Reviews Because Why Should You Believe Me? Rotten Tomatoes has a respectable 89% critics rating and 87% audience rating for Robot & Frank. Jeff Meyers at MetroTimes enjoyed the film while noting, “The final act, in particular, feels rushed and formulaic, and a subplot with Frank’s daughter (Liv Tyler) goes nowhere — but it does benefit immensely from his underlying character study, which is rich, tender and artful.” Witney Seibold at CraveOnline writes “Robot & Frank is, all at once, an astute look at the near future, a chuckle-worthy heist movie, a pure exercise in science fiction, and a sweet little drama.

    What did you think of Robot & Frank? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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