The Queen’s Gambit (Review)

(Glad that my review got published in Readers Write - Thank you so much Baradwaj Rangan! )

Streaming on Netflix and consisting of seven episodes, each with a runtime of about an hour, The Queen’s Gambit could be termed as a coming of age drama of an orphaned girl who is a chess prodigy. Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Queen’s Gambit happens in the cold war years when the race between the USA and Russia spilled over to chess boards. (From Russia with love, anyone?) Set in the US, Elizabeth Harmon, orphaned after an road accident, gets admitted to an small town orphanage, where she is drawn to the game of chess. After much pestering, the genial old janitor, Shaibel agrees to teach her the game. And it does not take much time for Shaibel to realise ‘Beth’ is a chess prodigy, a sheer genius. The story unfolds over the next ten years or so of Beth’s life - her adopted home, her brilliance in the game, her troubles with relationship, her struggle with her own self and her meteoric rise in the sport that culminates in the world championship showdown in Moscow.  

 

Screenwriting for a character who is a genius in any field is expected to follow a template. Like, the onscreen geniuses are supposed to be eccentrics, mostly loners, persons who lack normal empathy and above all, men and women who cannot handle failures in their fields. Maybe that is the reality too. The writers of The Queen’s Gambit have used the same mould without any major deviations. An easy parallel could be drawn between the onscreen Sherlock Holmes, the genius investigator (Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Elizabeth Harmon. You have Mrs.Hudson and Dr.Watson here too, but just that they are in different forms. But, while the characterisation per se does not break any new ground, the decision of the creators - of placing a girl-lady at the centre of a board game that symbolises human intellect and is still dominated by men - is simply brilliant, simply smart and more importantly, is not an easy one to make. Beth stands out, dazzles. 

 

Anya Taylor-Joy, as the grownup Beth, has not just breathed life and soul into the character but she has actually carried the entire series on her shoulders. Even within the limited bandwidth of emotions she is required to display, drawing from her hitherto unexplored resources as an actor, Taylor-Joy has given such a nuanced performance. Taylor-Joy has convincingly portrayed Beth, the super gifted chess player, as someone who oozes super cool confidence while at the same time as someone who tries hard to conceal her vulnerabilities. Not very often female actors get an opportunity to play such big roles; Taylor-Joy has made full use of the chance handed out to her. She is here to stay. 

 

Taylor-Joy has been supported exceedingly well by Bill Camp, Moses Ingram, Marielle Heller, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and others, who play the roles of Beth’s coaches, confidants, companions and competitors in the dramatic life of the prodigy. 

 

Irrespective of the hardships and complexities, it is comparatively easier to shoot sports like racing or boxing. It is due to the mere fact that the very nature of these sports, packed with exciting action and a boisterous bunch of spectators, allows the audience to get connected with them easily. But with a game like chess in which the movement of the players is restricted mainly to their right hands coming up once a while, and where the spectators are expected to maintain pin-drop silence, it is indeed a tough task to create riveting visuals. Editor Michelle Tesoro and cinematographer Steven Meizler, getting solid support from composer Carlos Rafael Rivera, have worked wonders with their innovative shots and cuts. We are drawn into the game fully and there is never a moment of dullness. The high point being the presentation of the U.S. Championship tournament (Episode 5, Fork). It is such a beautiful and intelligent work.

 

What is the gold standard for an outstanding creation? The long and short of it is: None. But one of the metrics could be the way in which the creator spins a riveting tale out of normal ingredients - just like a magician pulling out cute bunnies out of a boring black hat right in front of your eyes in broad daylight. The sport of chess definitely does not belong to the league of attractive regulars like athletics or soccer, or for that matter even golf where one gets to at least see meticulously maintained landscapes dotted with fancy ponds, roving buggies and so on. And in the world of streaming platforms ruled by macho men in the form of gangsters, cops and kings, an orphaned girl as the central lead did not stand any chance - or at least that is what is presumed. But in The Queen’s Gambit, out of the boring black hat of chess boards and a lady as the lead, the creators Allan Scott and Scott Frank have pulled out something truly remarkable. Checkmated!

Forty Years Of Mahendran’s Rajinikanth And Sridevi-Starrer Johnny

(An improved version of this article got published in Film Companion. Thanks so much Team FC!)

It is ironic that a movie with Rajinikanth in a dual role and titled ‘Johnny’ is also among the most woman-centric Tamil blockbusters. It is also precisely why Johnny, written and directed by the legendary J.Mahendran, is ageless. Coming close to the hero’s another double role hit, Billa, a gangster film released on the Republic day of 1980, Johnny, the Independence day release, was at the other end of the sensibility spectrum. Unlike in Billa and other typical commercial films, in Johnny the female characters did not exist merely to decorate the screen. Instead, they move the story, they decide the action of men.

Johnny is a conman. But what occupies his life is - music. Right at the first scene Johnny is recording folk songs of the hills.  And till the end the love for music guides him. He admires and adores Archana, a lonely singer with a magical voice played extraordinarily by Sridevi. Admiration turns into love. Archana too needs Johnny. But his dark life does not allow him to take the relationship forward. Meanwhile, love blossoms in the life of a miserly barber Vidhyasagar, again played by Rajinikanth. Bhama is the girl. Her innocence melts his heart. But only till he gets to know her fully. Vidhyasagar ends up killing her. He starts hating women.  Soon, he comes to Archana’s home and starts living as Johnny, who is on the run by now. Vidhyasagar intends to exploit Archana. He repeatedly hurts her. Archana cries silently, she is confused - but her love for Johnny is unchanged. It is so pure. So how does the real Johnny and Archana unite? With a highly restrained yet powerful performance by the lead actors, the story unfolds gracefully and concludes in a beautiful way as Archana and Johnny come together to live happily ever after. Only a master like Mahendran, who had total clarity on what he was doing, could have pulled off such a feat. 

 

While normal screenplays struggle hard to achieve the desired character arc and yet languish, Johnnyeffortlessly presents it. Simply exemplary writing. Two couples. The first: a genuine man albeit with blemishes; an innocent lady. The second: a flawed lady; a man with blemishes but with a golden heart. Their lives cross. It is a writing that builds on the intelligence of the audience. The story just moves forward with minimal but impactful interactions of the characters. Every line uttered during the anchor scenes sound so simple and natural, but they bring to the fore the deepest bottoms of the characters. For instance, the place where Johnny and Archana have a chance meeting on the beach. The lines they seem to speak so casually - actually sum up their lives. Again, a master at work. There are many such gems - the scene where Archana proposes but Johnny remains helpless, the place where Vidhyasagar reveals his true identity to Archana and apologises. He concludes, ‘..I am barber by profession, murderer by accident, and now, because of you .. a human being. Thank you.. thank you very much!’ There is no melodrama, there is no build up. The lines are direct, and from the heart. And yet they elevate the art.

 

Johnny is also a film that tells us why Sridevi is well, Sridevi. It is easily one of her lifetime best roles. In the entire film she has only 3-4 pages of dialogues. That is all. And most of the lines are normal ones, not the usual cinematic ones like ‘Inum evalavu jenmamm eduthalum neenga thaan en kanavar..’-types. Yet, how she scores! Sridevi speaks more with her unsaid words. She expresses her emotional trauma convincingly - not by creating a ruckus but merely by - holding back tears from rolling down her cheeks. Archana is the soul of Johnny, and Sridevi gives life to Archana.

 

To this date Johnny stands out in Rajinikanth’s filmography. It is one of the last films to bank solely on the acting skills of Rajini. Murattu Kalai, released in the same year after Johnny, catapulted Rajinikanth into Superstardom. The hero’s trajectory changed forever. Barring a few exceptions like an Enkeyo Ketta Kural or a Sri Raghavendrar, Rajinikanth never looked back and till this date keeps rolling out revenge dramas, replete with hero intro songs, heavy duty action, style with cigarettes, punch dialogues and catchy mannerisms and so on. Basically, all the Rajini things. Collaborating for the second time with Rajinikanth after their earlier outing Mullum Malarum, this time Mahendran upped the challenge for the actor with a dual role. For his part Rajinikanth gave a memorable performance, especially as Vidhyasagar the stylish, reclusive barber who undergoes a series of tribulations. Love. Betrayal. Murder. Deceit. Realisation. Sacrifice. The character has a great range and depth. And Rajini sparkles as Vidhyasagar. In spite of his daring conman acts, the Johnny character needed to subtly display an underlying sense of vulnerability throughout the film. Rajini pulls it off too. Just sample the scene where Archana proposes to Johnny.

(Mullum Malarum, the duo's earlier outing)

 

The film has a limited number of characters and among them Suruli Rajan gets a considerable share. With his peculiar voice and funny body language, the actor provides a solid support to Rajinikanth, especially in the initial scenes. There are a few light moments. Bhama is very central to the film. Bhama’s innocence attracts Vidhyasagar; Her betrayal turns him into a killer. Deepa, as Bhama, has deftly handled the role. It is a wise casting decision too. Not many lady actors could perform negative shades comfortably. 

 

Just like with his many other films, Ilayaraaja compliments as well competes with the filmmaker, delivering songs and background score of a superior quality. As they say, it is tough to believe that one man could do so much. The movie has five songs, and out of them only one has a male singer. Again, stressing the woman-centric nature of the film. ‘En vaanile..’ by Jency is among the greatest melodies of Ilayaraaja and it keeps engrossing FM radio listeners even now. ‘Oru iniya manadhu..’ by Sujatha is another powerful melody that is capable of transporting us to a different world. ‘Aasaya kaathula ..’ by S.P.Shailaja still sort of haunts us. It has a Hindi avatar as ‘Stereophonic Sannata..’ from Shamitabh (2015). ‘Kaatril endhan geetham..’ by S.Janaki is a landmark climax song in the annals of Tamil films. But beyond the song, the beauty of film is that even as the long separated hero and heroine meet, soon after the song, they do not utter even a single word. Ilayaraaja’s music takes over and the film ends with the caption ‘Music The Life Giver’. 

The Secret of Success Or: Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree of Exams

The most important phase of a student’s school life is the time when her school education ends. It is as much stressful as it is ironical. The zone when the doors of the school shut on you and the college gates are ready to welcome you. Transformational. Tectonic. It is not by any stretch ‘recent’ when I too was at the cusp. But still the memories linger, and at times torment me as I wake up to the nightmares of misplaced exam hall tickets or forgotten answers. The Class XII Exam results meant a lot.

I did my higher secondary from the Tamil Nadu Board that was mainly aimed at testing a student’s memory power. Colloquially, the thumb rule for scoring well in the Exams is to ‘read and vomit’. The evaluation encouraged neat hand writing, impressive presentation and rote memory. Be it English or physics or moral science, generally the exam question papers had questions only from the text books. The themes like developing an inquisitive mind, fostering scientific temper and improving the self-confidence of students were absolutely alien to the pedagogy. Nevertheless, the competition was crazy. As an additional feature, the Board awarded higher marks to more number of students. Even at the top you are not alone — there were hundreds of students even in the 97–99% group. It was insane. As I was aiming for an institute that admitted students purely on the Class XII marks, the results meant everything to me.

Fortunately, there were no debacles and things panned out fairly well for me. Over the years I would go on to take many more crucial exams, and hundreds of other tests, semester exams, online tests and personal interviews. Most of the results were in line, but many, especially the ones during my graduation days, were utter failures; and in one of them I scored a memorable 00/60. It was the first test of Differential Equation and Fourier Series. Twenty years have gone by, and here I am, Enlightened under the Bodhi Tree of Exams, sharing the Five Noble Truths -

                                                             (Image from Pinterest)

Truth of exams: The evaluation modules come in various avatars like exams, internal tests, practical, viva voce, group discussions, personality tests, aptitude tests and so on. Each form expects something from you; each of them has broadly different goals. Understand what the exam expects from you. Some of them, like the optional paper of the civil services exams, require in-depth understanding of the subject, while a few like social media marketing demand a degree of creativity too. Some of them test your intelligence, while the likes of official language papers in government training academies may test your patience. You also have to understand the importance of the exam to you. Is it a so-called life or death paper or just a technical formality that needs to ticked? Bonus: A good place to know more about an exam is the question bank of the past 8–10 years.

Truth about yourself: This crucial Truth is also the one that is often skipped. Introspection is important. Find a peaceful corner and talk with yourself. To use a jargon, students could do a self-SWOT analysis. Do not get bogged down by star performers who score a sixer in every ball faced and bag a wicket in every ball they bowled. Just play to your strengths. But till a level in school, and also in a few stages beyond school life, we are expected to gain a stronghold of all the subjects taught. It is inevitable. So think of O and T and act on them. Bonus: Ask near and dear ones about yourself. Even a Hanuman needs a Jambavan.

Truth of goals: Everything starts here. And ends here. This Truth is the first among equals. Be flexible with what you what and how much you want. Do not fall into the trap of being perfect with every preparation. You will be surprised to know that many of the IIT JEE toppers or IAS exam toppers have been selective with their goals. They do not try to score extraordinary numbers in every topic of a subject. Instead, these stars pick and choose the areas that give them maximum ROI. They aspire to top the exam; but they do not necessarily aim to score a centum. On the other extreme, I have personally set ‘just-pass’ as the goal in certain situations, and believe me it is so relaxing. Bonus: A well set goal is a great motivator.

Truth of fear: On an exam day, it is very normal for most of us to hold on to our books and notebooks and ruffle pages randomly till the very last moment, with one leg already inside the exam hall — just in hope of brushing our memory one last time, just in expectation of seeing the topic you had just browsed as the first question in the exam. There are two different things working here — First: the need for the last-minute revision of key topics and Second: the fear of going blank. Just when we wake up on the day of the exam most of us feel that we had forgotten everything. Panic all around. But with a quick revision, things reappear pretty rapidly. We get more comfortable. But as we wait outside the exam hall, the same phenomenon occurs once again. And we start rummaging our material aimlessly. Avoid this. Once you are done with the high priority topics, just shut down. Enter the exam hall calmly. Whatever happens, happens. Bonus: You can do it!

Truth of the path:
1. Right friends: Surround yourself with positive minds.
2. Right responsibility: Your exam is basically your responsibility.
3. Right teachers: Guruvey saranam.
4. Right effort: Blood and sweat, no alternatives.
5. Right discipline: Follow a proper work schedule.
6. Right health: A strong mind in a strong body.
7. Right revision: Revision is the name of the game.
8. Right view: When you fail, fight harder the next time.

I wish I had got my Enlightenment a long ago. I could have scored at least one mark in Diffix.