In the only Urdu/Hindi film he ever made, Indian cinema’s Bengali language grandmaster Satyajit Ray used chess as a metaphor, setting it against the backdrop of the crumbling Navabi rule over Avadh (Lucknow), and its imminent take-over by the British East India company. It was simply called Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players). Another chess film, a 30-minute short made in 1988, was called Queen Sacrifice. The present film manages with just a pawn sacrifice! Two feature-length recent moves in this context have been Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) and Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011), the first one a feature, and the latter a raved documentary, directed by Liz Garbus. Fischer himself published Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (1966) and My 60 Memorable Games (1969), while biographies on the genius include Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall..., by Frank Brady (2011). Now comes the Edward Zwick directed Pawn Sacrifice, a watchable film, for both, chess aficionados, and those who get bored at the mere sight of a chess-board.

What we have here is a biographical film about American chess legend Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire), born to a Jewish mother and an unidentified father, and Soviet Grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber), enthralling the world with their intense battle of wills, wits and strategy, during the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the height of the Cold War. The film also captures Fischer's rise from a disturbed Brooklyn boy to a chess prodigy, and his mental condition, which increasingly wavers between wonder-man and a raving, paranoid, accusing almost everybody of being in a conspiracy against him, bugging his room, and making unreasonable and eccentric demands before and during almost every game he played.

Writing credits go to Steven Knight (worked on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Seventh Son, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Locke), Stephen J. Rivele (Nixon, Ali, Copying Beethoven, Like Dandelion Dust) and Christopher Wilkinson (Nixon, Ali, Copying Beethoven), with Knight (a chess character?) being the principal author. Audiences are most likely to ask why the film ended where it did, with just a couple of shots of archival footage featuring the real Bobby Fischer, since the film dealt with his brain as much as his chess acumen, and his brain started behaving even more erratically after he won the world championship. So many events and developments occurred in that phase of Bobby’s life and in world history of the three decade follow-up that a sequel could be considered, though a biopic sequel is a rarity.

In the narrative, the track about Bobby’s mother and sister is kept to a bare minimum and there are only two scenes involving a romantic encounter. Nothing is shown about his wife/lovers/child(ren). Some less patient viewers might find the length a wee bit long, and this explains the makers’ decision to avoid dwelling on his family and post triumph disappearance from the public eye. In 2009, the Pawn Sacrifice script was included in Hollywood list of the best unproduced screenplays. In 2010, David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, The Social Network) was announced as the director. In 2013, when filming actually took place, Edward Zwick had taken over.

Ed Zwick is the man who gave us Glory, The Last Samurai, Defiance, Legends of the Fall, and Blood Diamond. He recently told a publication, “Like everyone, I was a kid who played chess when I was young. And I am admittedly old enough to have been around during the fervor of the match in Reykjavík, and the rise of Bobby Fischer, so those two things conspired to pique my interest. I’m never going to be able to teach an audience the nuances of chess, but I think audiences are very much attuned to the struggle between two athletes, as indeed these two chess players are.” Since the original tale was already in the sport/athlete hero-villain format, with Fischer first losing and then winning the re-match, Zwick has stuck to the basics. A lot of clips from TV coverage of the Fischer saga dot the scenario, saying exactly the things that you expect to hear. By exploring Fischer’s mind, allowing Maguire to develop it in all its eccentricity and intensity and counter-poising it with Schreiber’s equanimity and nonchalance, he has worked out a fine balance. He waits for the hero to carve out his niche before delving into the opponent’s psyche and the opposition’s view of the game and its stakes. Though the American side has been given more footage, with the CIA and Henry Kissinger being named, and a brief two-lines in Kissinger’s voice included, Zwick does not give the Communists a clean chit either.

Tobey Maguire (The Ice Storm, The Cider House Rules, Spiderman, The Great Gatsby) exhibits an intensity not normally associated with him, and shows you just why he produced the film and stayed with it for some 11 years. Eyes and voice, mannerisms and jerks of the head, everything underscores how obsessed a person Fischer was and how obsessed Maguire is with this role. In an above average film, his performance is a notch even higher. Liev Schreiber (Scream, Glengarry Gary Ross, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) has very few lines in the first half of the film and is made to carry a casual, impenetrable look. He comes into his own in the second half, as the script moves USSR contingent-wards. Maguire gets to throw all the tantrums, while Schreiber is largely Mr. Cool.

As Fischer’s sister Joan, Lily Rabe (American Horror Story) has one emotion-charged scene that stands out. As his single mother, Robin Weigert is effortless and ages well. Peter Saarsgard, who is also in the cast of this week’s other release, Black Mass, gets another chance to prove his mettle as Father Bill Lombardy, who saw a great future for Bobby and helped him win the world championship by bouncing game moves and playing tactics. Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) as Paul Marshall, the patriotic lawyer who looks at Bobby as America’s cold war bomb against the Soviets and leads him on, dons a look far removes from his real-life persona, and lets the blinded nationalism seep right in. Sophie Nélisse (young Joan), Evelyne Brochu (Donna, the beach-comber who hits on Bobby), Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (teen Bobby Fischer) and Aiden Lovekamp (young Bobby Fischer) provide worthy support.

Chess gave us terms like check, checkmate and stalemate. It gave us controversial heroes like Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Now it inspires a film, a passion project from the actor best known for playing Spiderman. On the lighter side, in one comic scene, an X-ray of Spassky’s chair, which he believes has been fitted with a device emitting disturbing waves, shows no such device but only two dead flies, and no, no spiders!  

There can be no hero more unreal than a comic-book super-hero. Likewise, there can be no lead part more real than a real-life champion who died just a few years ago, and might still be living in the memories of most of his fans. Tobey Maguire has walked both paths, and left his foot-prints on both roads.

In chess as in life, never under-estimate your adversary; never under-rate a movie, just because it is about Spiderman playing chess!

Check this out, Mate.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htFP3Lm8vSQ

Robert James ‘Bobby’ Fischer’s later years

Despite his worldwide popularity, Fischer's unpredictable behaviour continued unabated. In the mid-1970s, he refused to play Anatoly Karpov, the challenger to his title, and was stripped of his championship by the International Chess Federation. Fischer was reportedly homeless for a time in the Los Angeles area, an got involved with a minor church, becoming its prime donor. He also became known for making highly disturbing anti-Semitic remarks, though he was of Jewish ancestry. He defended these by saying that he was not anti-Semitic but pro-Arab, and that Arabs were also Semites.

On the 20th anniversary of the Fischer/Spassky world championship game, the two met again, in 1992, to play a special $5 million rematch, in Yugoslavia, though travel to the country by American citizens was outlawed at the time, Yugoslavia being at civil war. Fischer, who had not played publicly since 1975, again defeated Spassky, whose ranking had slipped to 99th in the world, in the privately organised tournament, and each collected a share of the $5 million purse.

Fischer continued to live abroad for several years, in various European countries and then Japan, to avoid facing criminal charges in the U.S., including tax evasion. Meanwhile, he continued his anti-Semitic diatribes and, on a radio broadcast, even celebrated the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

He was eventually granted citizenship by Iceland, where the historic match was held, moving there in 2005. Having a limited circle of relationships, while holding a sizeable bank balance from the earnings of the Yugoslavian match, Bobby Fischer died of kidney failure, on January 17, 2008, in Reykjavík.

Among his numerous quotes, there is this one about the secret of his success: “I give 98% of my mental energy to chess; others give only 2%,”

Boris Vasilyevich Spassky

Spassky was born on January 30, 1937, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, U.S.S.R. In1953, aged 16, he gained the rank of international master. In 1955, he won the world junior championship, and, in that same year, he won the title of international grandmaster. He was a Soviet chess master, and world champion from 1969 to 1972.Spassky lost the world title to Bobby Fischer in 1972. Twenty years later, the two men faced each other in a controversial rematch that took place in Yugoslavia. On 23 September, 2010 Spassky was brought to a Moscow clinic, having suffered a stroke. A few weeks later, the grandmaster, who has dual French and Russian citizenship, was sent to France, where he had been living since 1976. There, he was effectively put under ‘house arrest’ for two years, by his wife, Marina Shcherbacheva, apparently to extract money. The phone was cut off, there was no Internet access, and both his passports were missing. But, with the help of friends, he was able to flee to Moscow. While in France, he completed his autobiography, My Chess Path.