"I have to study chess eight hours a day. They want me to play in San Francisco, be on The Tonight Show. But what I want… is a drink."
This is one of the best portrayals of addiction that I've seen in a while. It didn't make me jittery with cravings, the way Euphoria did, or straight up apathetic to my own horrible coping mechanisms, the way every teen show ever did. And that's because here, substances are neither glorified nor normalized. We watch her relapse, again and again and again, and we watch her lose so much to her addiction, but we don't watch her crumble beyond saving, decay into a hopeless case. Beth Harmon gets an optimistic ending, and it is a cathartic experience.
It is extremely rare for a female protagonist to be directed by a man, written by a man, and based off a novel also written by a man, and not fall into the categories of either a) the unlikeable "Eve" who destroys everything she touches and is the reason for all mankind's woes, b) the damsel in distress who screams "the-man-who-wrote-me-has-never-felt-the-warmth-of-a-woman" or c) the neoliberal girlboss whose only character trait is "strong" as opposed to "pretty", as if that makes it any better. And yet, Scott Frank's Beth Harmon is painfully real and relatable, and there is no way this story would have worked if she was a man. To be fair, much of this must be attributed to Anya Taylor-Joy, whose performance and also general existence is an absolute blessing. She is so, so talented, and also I would like to politely ask her to rail me.
Overall, the writers do a great job of building an emotional attachment to Beth without excess dialogue, and I'm always appreciative of a little bit of well-done silence. What really stands out here, to me, is how well crafted Beth's relationships are. Her friendships with men are overwhelmingly and refreshingly healthy, and the fact that they didn't pit her against Cleo when most other filmmakers would have makes me very, very happy. With less care, Beth's character could've very easily fallen into the "not like the other girls" trope, but instead, she's fleshed out into an actual complex human. She's smart, and powerful, and feels no need to impress nor conform to societal standards, but she's also feminine and dresses well, and in Cleo's words, "likes to fuck". Sex is also portrayed really well here; only a total of one (1) shot felt even remotely male gaze-y.
The editing is genuinely really great, and combined with the score, does the bulk of the heavy lifting when it comes to convincing us that chess isn't the most boring thing in the world. I especially liked the montage during the championship in episode 5; it reminded me of French New Wave techniques and added a much-needed hint of playfulness.
I'm very pleasantly surprised that Netflix managed to produce a show with both substance and technical finesse. Also surprised American filmmakers managed to make a show partially set in the USSR and not be annoyingly anti-communist. I can't believe they made me feel lame for NOT being able to play chess.
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