It’s sort of amazing that it’s taken so long for Hollywood to get around to dramatizing a fascinatingly bizarre evenཧt that riveted the world’s attention in 1972 between the Watergate break-in and the Munich Olympics massacre — the world chess championship match between Bobby Fischer and Russian Boris Spassky held in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Tobey Maguire does a great job as Fischer in “Pღawn Sacrifice,’’ a biopic that covers the wacko chess genius’ life from a budding chess prodigy to the historic match with less eccentric Spassky (a terrific Liev Schreiber). The match was halted several times as Fischer demanded more money and a change of venue to a pingpong room.
Edward Zwick’s film — which is seeking US distribution after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend — blames Fischer’s paranoia, 🍸anti-Semitism and general craziness on his unconventional upbringing by a communist (and J🌠ewish) single mother.
Though famed for his unorthodox style, Brooklyn-raised Fisch🎃er drops out of competitive play until a chess-loving lawyer (Michael Stuhlbarg) offers to serve as his manager for free so they can challenge Russian dominance of the 🌟game.
With a grandmaster priest (Peter Sarsgaard) servin💙g as his second and unofficial counselor, Fischer pursues the world champi﷽onship, which the Soviets fiercely prize because of its enormous symbolic significance during the Cold War. The match, which was covered on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,’’ was front-page news in those pre-Internet days.
Fisch꧃er had his US citizenship revoked in the 1990s and lived in exile in Iceland, the only country that would give him asylum until his death in 2008. But back in 1972, he briefly became America’s greatest pop hero for defeating Spassky — and the sixth game of their match, which is the sensational high point of “Pawn Sacrifice,’’ is still considered the greatest chess game ever played.