[yasr_overall_rating]
Set during the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer finds himself caught between two superpowers and his own struggles as he challenges the Soviet Empire.
American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer embarks upon an intellectual battle against Russian chess grandmaster Boris Spassky in director Edward Zwick’s “Pawn Sacrifice,” a dramatization of the famous 1972 match in Reykjavik, Iceland where the lines between genius and madness begin to blur and everyone waits with bated breath to see what happens next.
The seeds of mania, obsession, and arrogance are planted early on in Zwick’s biopic drama of the eccentric chess prodigy Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire). While the first half of “Pawn Sacrifice” rushes through the childhood and adolescence of Fischer, we witness the idiosyncrasies and the venom a young Fischer has for his mother, Jews, and communists, stemming from an environment where he has been taught, and knows, that he and his family are under surveillance, creating a burgeoning paranoia that persists into adulthood. Chess appears to be his only outlet, his talent, and his purest expression, which is nurtured by his first mentor Carmine Nigro (Conrad Pia).
Bobby Fischer is arrogant, impatient, and full of a childlike rage that never dissipates and ultimately comes to a head when he comes up against World Champion Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). With Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg), a lawyer with ties to Washington D.C., and Father Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), a priest and mentor of Fischer’s, helping Bobby make it through the journey to the World Championship Match, we see the full bloom of Cold War paranoia in Bobby. Torn between having a cultural war win for America and curtailing the episodes of Bobby’s behavior and deteriorating mental state, Marshall and Lombardy scurry about attempting to fulfill Bobby’s laundry list of inane demands all the while trying not to lose their own sanity or drive for the win.
While the thought of going to see a film about chess may not thrill everyone (even I had my doubts) there is no denying that Tobey Maguire gives a hell of a performance as Bobby Fischer. His intensity onscreen overflows, casting a sheen of trepidation and anticipation over the audience. You cannot ignore his fury, and he’s in fact a tad frightening. Liev Schreiber’s appearance as Boris Spassky is formidable yet quiet and contemplating. He has the elegance and aura of “cool” which provides a nice juxtaposition between the two players and to an extent their respective countries.
Before viewing this film I had heard of Bobby Fischer, usually within the context of an insult, referring to someone being a master manipulator or strategist, but I did not know that Bobby Fischer and the 1972 World Championship were such a big deal and had such implications within our culture and the history of the Cold War. Zwick’s film succeeds in that it does not give a blow by blow of why Bobby is as neurotic as he is, but rather gives in to subtlety, hinting at this and that. You never know if Bobby is truly mad or if his inclinations are justly founded. There’s an air of mystery throughout the film, never knowing the true motives of anyone involved. The film may lag for some, but Zwick’s “Pawn Sacrifice” creates a compelling portrait of madness within genius during, “The Match of the Century.”
In select theaters now including the Angelika Film Center in Dallas
