: Searching for Bobby Fischer
This is about a seven-year-old boy with an affinity for chess. His dad encourages him, starts taking him on the competitive chess circuit, where the pressures of being perfect effect the boy. Eventually the mom and dad and the boy’s teacher have conflict over the boy’s future: how hard should adults push young geniuses to excel? The film raises some wonderful questions and doesn’t give us pat answers, but story-wise it’s sluggish, predictable, and not that unusual. The worst flaw for me is that the chess is presented at high speed with “dramatic” camera angles and quick cuts that make it impossible (at least for my slow brain) to keep up with the chess. I suppose this was done to make a “boring” game seem interesting, but because chess is such an important aspect of the story, I found it jarring and frustrating because the chess moves weren’t explained and some of the interesting genius moves weren’t demonstrated in a way that revealed their genius. They might have just as well eliminated the chess playing altogether and just cut to the trophy ceremony. Still, the film does have its moments.
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