Steven Zaillian

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2022) It’s perfectly acceptable to be skeptical about Searching for Bobby Fischer– I mean: a drama about a kid chess player, from the perspective of his father? Who’s going to want to watch that? But in the tradition of sports films, the clever script (adapted from a true-story nonfiction book by the father of true-life juvenile chess champion Josh Waitzkin) manages to make chess exciting, using dramatic elements for suspense, and extracting life lessons from an esoteric pursuit. While our kid champion is at the centre of the plot, you can reasonably argue that the lead of the film is his father, as he tries to channel his son’s passion in a life that won’t consume everything in favour of chess. Written and directed by Steven Zaillian with notable roles for Joe Mantegna, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen and Ben Kingsley, Searching for Bobby Fisher makes for breezy, absorbing viewing. It’s a film that spends as much time on the notion of fair play and life balance as it does on winning, giving it a slightly different edge than most sports films. (Still, you can reasonably wonder if chess gives permission for that kind of take – whether “don’t let sports consume you” and “play fair even if you lose” would work as well in the context of more hypermacho sports such as football.)  The direction is unobtrusive and the film flows well between family, coach and competitive contexts. Far more accessible than “a chess movie” would suggest, Searching for Bobby Fisher also has potential as a family film, especially as a discussion piece with overachievers.