PAWN SACRIFICE (2015)

Genre: Drama/Biography
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Liev Schreiber, Peter Sarsgaard, Lily Rabe, Robin Weigert, Michael Stuhlbarg
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 1 October 2015

Synopsis: In a gripping true story set during the height of the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) finds himself caught between two superpowers when he challenges the Soviet Empire. Also starring Liev Schreiber and Peter Sarsgaard, Pawn Sacrifice chronicles Fischer's terrifying struggles with genius and madness, and the rise and fall of a kid from Brooklyn who captured the imagination of the world.

Movie Review:

There ought to be a category of movies called the ‘tortured genius biological drama’, which would contain A Beautiful Mind, Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and now, Pawn Sacrifice. For the latter, it all started in 1950, in the middle of the Cold War, Beatlemania, and hippie culture, when Regina Fischer (Robin Weigert) tried to stop her son from playing chess with himself, which, ironically, let to chess expert Carmine Nigro (Conrad Pia) mentoring Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire). What followed after was history, as Fischer became the youngest chess grandmaster and candidate for the World Championship in history, at age 15. All that culminated in Fischer’s bid to become the chess World Champion, which would necessitate him beating then-World Champion, Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Also accompanying Fischer’s meteoric rise in the US and international chess scene was his worsening mental illness, and intensifying religious and anti-Semitic sentiments.

What was by far the most memorable part of the film was Aiden Lovekamp’s, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick’s and Tobey Maguire’s portrayal of the young, teenage and adult Bobby Fischer respectively. Starting out as an innocuous child, Fischer quickly grows into the brilliant and arrogant adult, as he excels in chess. It might just be the writer, but Tobey Maguire always seemed rather awkward, making him all the more convincing as the socially inept Fischer. While Maguire was good in the moving and speaking sequences, not the same can be said when he was silent – the close-up shots of Fischer languishing in his mind failed to express his mounting paranoia, when Maguire seemed more dazed and blank than anything else.

On the other hand, the film also came across as being too sympathetic towards Fischer. Right from the start, Fischer was shown as having to cope with his single mother’s neglect due to her devotion to the communist cause, in arguably the most communist-unfriendly country of the era. As if that was not bad enough, he was plagued with mental problems since youth, which exacerbated in adulthood. It was as though all of these reasons made it acceptable for Fischer to become a bratty teenager, and a self-righteous adult. Perhaps yes, it did make it easier to be sympathetic, but to quote a phrase from Tumblr, “tragic backstory explains behavior but does not excuse it”.

Another gripe with the film was that it placed too much emphasis on the context, and the reactions of the then-American public. Sure, it was rather interesting looking at the footage of events during the era, as well as the retro news studio reporting formats, but it quickly gets old (haha) while not adding much to the story. This was especially so during the turn of events during the World Championship matches, when the ‘street interviews’ of the Fischer groupies were just awkward and painful to watch. The film might be created with the American audience in mind, but the borderline jingoism was just distracting from the main subject of the film.

As a whole, Pawn Sacrifice struggles to stand out when compared to the other ‘tortured genius’ films, and would probably benefit by dedicating more time to flesh out Fischer’s character beyond his paranoia and obsession with chess, money and success. The audience was so left scratching their heads over the sneakily taken shots of Fischer – was he really suspected of being a communist sympathizer, or was it all in his head

Movie Rating:

(While Pawn Sacrifice sparks our sympathy for the protagonist, one can only take that much of a chess-mental illness-rant at the world loop before feeling bored)

Review by Goh Yan Hui