The basic struggle between the merciless competition decreed by theory of games and humanity of shared community is at the heart of Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). This is not the literal search, but, as we’re told early in the film, the search for the transformation from game to art that Fischer supposedly had discovered.
Young Josh is a newly discovered chess prodigy, and he learns early in Washington Square Park, where chess hustlers, who are drug addicts, make scratch money from playing speed chess against park visitors. Under the tutelage of Vinnie, who unfortunately isn’t given enough of a load to be really significant, he becomes quite good, and his parents choose to take him to a local chess club for more formal training, where a retired chess teacher, Pandolfini, a man burdened with his own demons coming from having been a prodigy, reluctantly agrees to teach him.
The personal costs of complete victory, the pieces of the soul that must be given up in that pursuit, are illustrated as Josh is stripped of Vinnie, his other friends, and even his beloved father, who falls into the trap of the competitive parent. But his mother, another under-utilized character, has become wary of this work in progress, and it doesn’t help when a new rival, Morgan, appears, lacking friends, hobbies, or even basic humanity, but with his own chess coach. When Josh bows out early at the school championship he was favored to easily win, there’s a clue: he’s not enjoying it anymore.
Vinnie reappears and returns the focus to the excitement of the speed version of chess, and when, against the advice of his coach, they go to the national championships for Josh’s age group, the tension is high as it comes down to Josh and Morgan, and Josh demonstrates both his humanity and his capacity for synthesis in the final game of the movie.
As noted, some of the characters could have been better utilized, but it’s a gifted cast and they make it fly; I just wonder if it would have been better with more contributions from the mother and Vinnie. As it is, it’s a fascinating look into the hard-core chess world, and almost makes me want to play another game of chess. I don’t think I’ve played more than a couple in 30 years, since high school chess.
Oh, yeah. I was terrible. But this film isn’t. I won’t quite recommend it because I didn’t like the pacing, but it’s worth a gander if you’re so inclined.
