Well, tonight saw many films on telly that I had already seen, and one I hadn't, and which caught my eye - Pawn Sacrifice is the story of the "match of the century", in which American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (played by Tobey Maguire) played the world champion, the Russian Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Peter Sarsgaard plays Fischer's second, US chess grandmaster Fr. Bill Lombardy. The match took place in Reykjavík in 1972 - so involved a whole heap of Cold War politics.
Chess, huh. See, I like chess, I play it - most people, however, wouldn't find the intimate details very interesting. Happily, they don't bother to try to teach you the rules - all you need to know for this is that one side plays black, the other white, and white always starts. Each player takes it in turn to move, and moves are allotted a set amount of time, which is measured by a special clock to the side - each player presses their button when they've moved, and the clock starts to tick for the other player. Oh, and despite the pursuit of the king being the object of the game, the queen is actually the most powerful piece - you might like to know why it's considered significant that Fischer sacrifices his in one of the matches.
You see, the match consisted of a series of individual matches - a score of 1 for a win, 1/2 for each player for a draw, and 0 for a loss, was totted up to give the total. I found it handy to have the Wikipedia article for the match - linked to above - beside me throughout, to have a more thorough description of what was happening; it's really glossed over, here. They do point out that the sixth match is a good indicator of the final winner - now, the only reason they say this is that, at this stage, a few matches had been played and, I guess, the players had had time to settle down - the scores were level at the start of Match 6. The film then seems to take the end of that match as the end of the whole thing - which is fair enough, in a way, if slightly confusing.
Yes, it's set during the Cold War - but the paranoia that Fischer is a martyr to has more to do with his inner demons; as the epilogue explains, his mental health deteriorated after the match. That's set up really well here, as he searches for bugs, spouts conspiracy theories, and refuses to play with cameras trained on him, as he says he can hear them. As they tell it, it's really Bill Lombardy's intervention that keeps him on an even keel. Mind you, it's also made clear to us that he was a chess genius - Lombardy remarks to him, after Match 6, that his playing is "inspired". And it's fun to watch the general public suddenly become chess fanatics..
And I'm afraid that's as far as I can recommend it. It's not one to watch, I think, unless you're interested in chess, and if you are, the detail given isn't sufficient. But Tobey Maguire does a great job of acting crazy, and both Liev Schreiber and Peter Sarsgaard are rather easy on the eye.
Tomorrow's film is Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Available on Amazon Prime, this is an Indian comedy about a young man who decides to go into sales - but soon finds it might not be exactly what fulfills him.
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