“The Queen’s Gambit”

 The recently hit American drama "The Queen’s Gambit" is adapted from Walter Tevez's novel of the same name. It tells the story of a genius girl growing up in the chess world, with a movie-like exquisite texture. The play strives to balance the storytelling and professionalism, adopting different methods such as long shots and split screens, and skillfully handles a large number of professional chess scenes in the original work. In this way, even if the audience does not understand chess, they can get a coherent and comfortable watching experience. In addition, the drama shogi game is closely related to life, which makes the story more powerful than legendary.

　　 Anti-routine plot setting                    

Beth, the protagonist of "The Queen’s Gambit" has a smooth journey, playing chess and winning the world championship at the age of only twenty. Although Beth was born a chess genius, the processing of the drama did not fall into the arrogance of "talent determines everything", but has repeatedly reflected her hard work. As director Frank said, "This is a story about talent and pain." "The Queen’s Gambit" is not about the ease of genius, but about the price that a person must pay to become a genius.

If you want to break through in many movies of the same type, you must show your personal style. In "The Queen’s Gambit", the development of the plot is always breaking the audience's expectations. Beth was not deliberately suppressed because of her uniqueness, and she did not encounter and fight with great malice. The director did not deliberately highlight the pain and difficulties, but put the story of a genius in an ordinary environment. All Beth met were ordinary people, neither perfect nor evil. Mr. Sabie, an orphan college worker, was taciturn and eccentric, but silently accepted the young Beth and opened the door to the chess world for her. The female supervisor is solemn and rigid, because Beth violated the rules and punished her not to play chess, but she still hoped that she would be adopted by good people. Although the adoptive mother is an alcoholic housewife, she does not make money by squeezing Beth's talent, but is by her side.

In a society full of material desires, many people have a defensive and vigilant inertial thinking, with more or less doubts and speculations about human nature. Regarding this point, the director of "The Queen’s Gambit" gave many hints from the soundtrack, the shots, the light and even the actor's slightly neurotic expressions, which made the audience faintly expect the change to happen, but found that it was just a flicker. The trend of the plot did not meet the audience's psychological needs, and it was unexpected and reasonable. This kind of anti-routine plot setting brings the audience a novel and strange drama watching experience.

　　The cleverness of the title: from closed to open

Audiences who do not understand chess may feel confused when they see the title of the play "The Queen’s Gambit". In fact, this is a technical term for chess, and the move is as follows: The first White, sacrifices the queen's wing pawn at the opening, and then achieves an active advantage in the game. Start with a closed situation, grasp the initiative as much as possible, control the center of the board, and exchange advantages and disadvantages in the game to reach an open situation.

The title of the play is a pun, which not only represents a way to start chess, but also metaphors the life of the heroine Beth: stepping out of self-enclosure, transforming in growth, and finally opening up a broad world of life, turning a narrow path into Go smoothly and become a truly free and mature chess player. Beth is not a perfect genius, but has a personality defect, and has growing confusion and pain. In her life, there is almost no trace of her father's existence, and her mother left early.

Failing to have a healthy family and happy childhood, Beth closed herself up and developed an indifferent and weird character. There is always anger in her heart. This anger caused her to completely shift the focus of her life to chess, with the help of tranquilizers to repeat the chess game on the ceiling, and rampage on the male-controlled chess arena with vigorous emotions. In the world of 64 grids, Beth felt "safe and everything under control". Usually, she is used to playing chess to release and vent her emotions, but after a series of changes such as losing chess and the death of her adoptive mother, she collapsed and began an unrestrained and degenerate life.

When Beth couldn't get out of the trauma, fortunately, a group of people helped her in time. What really motivated her to make a positive change was the news of Mr. Sabe’s death. When he stepped back into the basement of Mr. Sabe, the school worker, and saw the wall of newspaper clippings he had collected, and the only photo in his collection, Beth, who had always been emotionally seldom emotional, broke into tears. She recalled the first time she participated in the competition, it was Mr. Sabe who lent her the registration fee, but she gradually forgot to pay the money and forgot his existence. Before, she had always thought that she was living alone in the world, and suddenly found that there were still people in places she could not see, silently giving care and support.

This profound friendship made Beth determined to step out of the shadows and change herself, no longer trapped in her loneliness, no longer wasting her talents, and no longer disappointing people who care about her. Giving up on drugs and alcohol actually means giving up an advantage for Beth. Then she found that she could play good chess without using these! Just like the "rear wing abandoning soldiers" move, opening a gap, defeating the demons, the overall situation will suddenly become clear.

　The presence of the mother role: the inheritance of emotions and dreams

Although she has shown far beyond ordinary talents in the chess field, Beth's success cannot be opened by talent alone. Becoming a genius requires not only a price, but also guidance and guidance. No one is an island. Whether it is a friend, classmate or opponent, they more or less throw a pebble into Beth's heart when they get along, and her mother has a key influence on her life trajectory.

We learned from the beginning of the series that Beth's biological mother was killed in a car accident. Although Beth managed to save her life in the car accident, witnessing the suicide of her mother left an indelible scar in her heart. In a few important moments, her memory always flashed back to the moments when she was with her mother. In fact, her growth has never been free from the pain of her mother's death. She closed herself up, wrapped her fragile and feeble herself under a cold shell, and resisted the rules of this world with disregard and anger.

On the other hand, Beth's mother graduated from Cornell University, not only passed on her high IQ to her daughter, but also affected her life standards. "Only a strong woman can live alone. After all, in this world, everyone will live just to prove what they have." Mother's words circled and lingered in Beth's mind for her. A life-long firm choice laid the foundation. In that era, chess was still a male-dominated field, and it was not easy for Beth to show off her ambitions. But she never felt frustrated and withdrawn because of her gender, but was consistent. Fight for the cause you truly love.

In addition to the birth mother, the portrayal of the adoptive mother in "The Queen’s Gambit" is also remarkable. The adoptive mother not only gave Beth a guidance on the life experience of a female elder, but also made her feel the company and love of her family. Even if it seems to start from the relationship of mutual use, it does not affect the warm end of this fate: interdependence, mutual dependence, mutual support, from polite alienation to gradually becoming an indispensable part of each other's hearts.

Talent aptitude and life wisdom are indispensable conditions for Beth to become a genius and win the championship. This is a precious gift left by the two mothers to Beth. Due to the limitations of the times and individuals, the previous generation of talented women fell in the face of fate. They failed to realize the passionate dream in their hearts, leaving regret and unwillingness. After the excellent qualities of them were inherited and absorbed by Beth, her success can also be said to be a continuation of a dream. The birth defects cannot be reversed, but we can choose how to move forward, let go of unwillingness, and face the fear. "There is nothing to be afraid of in the dark. The most powerful people in the world are not afraid of being alone." Conquering yourself is a true victory; if you boldly pursue the direction of your heart, you can step into the light and smooth path from the narrow corridor!

Reference

https://about.netflix.com/zh_cn/news/the-queens-gambit-netflix-most-watched-scripted-limited-series