PAWN SACRIFICE REVEALS THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOBBY FISCHER
From the age of 4, Bobby Fischer (played by Toby Maguire) was obsessive/compulsive about chess, which was self-taught. Pawn Sacrifice, directed by Edward Zwick, follows his career up the day when he became world champ in 1972, defeating Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Sheltered by his mother (Lily Rabe) as a child, his mental problem, including increasing paranoia, was accommodated by his sponsors until his potential for victory over Spassky became important in the Cold War, as egged on by Henry Kissinger, to symbolize American superiority. But his defiance of the Soviet boycott after 1979 resulted in a warrant for his arrest. Although his arrest and detention for many months in Japan is not featured in the film, titles at the end reveal his acceptance for political asylum by Iceland, where he lived with deteriorating mental health until his death in 2008. Pawn Sacrifice provides suspense to what many may incorrectly perceive as a game played without drama, albeit with a very odd film score that appears to explain Fischer’s maturation in an era of some social madness. MH