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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
24
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
The Daily BeastOct 26, 2020
Season 1 Review:
It is Anya Taylor-Joy, playing Beth from the age of 13 to 22 in a seemingly effortless metamorphosis, who makes Frank’s film work, particularly in the way she beautifully articulates the inwardness, the fury, and the intelligence of Tevis’ creation. ... The drama that matters most is played out not on a board but on Beth’s face and in her body language, and in her heart. And thanks to the stunning collaborative skill of Scott Frank and Anya Taylor-Joy, there’s never any doubt about what that heart holds.
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Oct 20, 2020
Season 1 Review:
At this point, any hour-long drama that forsakes intellectual property, narrative histrionics and expensive special effects in favor of psychological realism represents a welcome change of pace. And one as excellent as The Queen’s Gambit feels very rare indeed. ... A transcendent performance by Anya Taylor-Joy. ... One of the year’s most fascinating TV characters.
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The PlaylistOct 5, 2020
Season 1 Review:
One hopes that “The Queen’s Gambit” would serve as a reminder that quality writing can always find an audience. With production values that compare with anything on television this year, a performance at the center that never falters, and the kind of rich storytelling more common to literature than television, this is one of the most consistently entertaining and impressive shows of 2020.
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Oct 21, 2020
Season 1 Review:
It absorbs the viewer into the rarefied realm of world-class competition and acquaints the nonplayer with enough of the mechanics to make the outcomes accessible and meaningful. ... If there are awards to be had, Ms. Heller and Ms. Taylor-Joy should get them. ... Ms. Taylor-Joy is really the beginning and endgame of “The Queen’s Gambit,” and gives a performance that is as precisely physical as it is emotional.
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Oct 20, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Taylor-Joy's tour de force performance — one that deserves awards recognition over the months to come — is integral to the success of The Queen's Gambit, but it's far from the seven-episode saga's only asset. Boasting a novelistic, steady momentum, The Queen's Gambit works for many of the same reasons Netflix's The Crown works: It's smart, lavishly produced television for inquisitive grownups, even when it's very much operating within a genre prone to familiar rhythms. It's something to relish.
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Oct 30, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Everything that works in writer-director Scott Frank’s highly bingeworthy adaptation of “The Queen’s Gambit,” which is most everything about it, comes from treating Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel just seriously enough. ... The results aren’t “important," or “improving.” They’re just pretty irresistible.
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Oct 28, 2020
Season 1 Review:
"Queen's" [script] is electrifying. Frank's direction is full of quick cuts, artful framing and beautiful shots. Paired with the superb score, "Queen's" gives the series' many chess matches near Olympic tension and gravitas, as exciting as any great sports film. But "Queen's" wouldn't sing without Taylor-Joy, who turns in one of the best performances of her already celebrated young career.
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RogerEbert.comOct 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Anchored by a magnetic lead performance and bolstered by world-class acting, marvelous visual language, a teleplay that’s never less than gripping, and an admirable willingness to embrace contradiction and ambiguity, it’s one of the year’s best series. While not without flaws, it is, in short, a triumph.
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Oct 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
No knowledge of chess is needed to enjoy this show. It’s more about one person’s evolution, a classic long journey through friendships, love and personal struggles. But it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Taylor-Joy making that journey; she imbues Beth with a cool confidence and her exotic, big-eyed look has an oddball eroticism that’s hers alone. Chess has never sizzled like this.
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Oct 27, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Taylor-Joy’s cerebral acting meshes perfectly with Beth’s story. She’s an actor of micro-expressions, of flickers of eyes and twitches of lips, and what makes The Queen Gambit such a good fit for her is the way she keeps both the viewer and Beth’s opponents at arm’s length.
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Oct 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The Queen’s Gambit is still largely satisfying anyway, as a handsome-looking period piece, another showcase for Taylor-Joy’s talents (and her eyes), and a consideration of anxiety, unprocessed trauma, and how both can so easily conspire to drive a genius in the opposite direction of her dreams.
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Oct 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The Queen’s Gambit is actually aware that its protagonist can occasionally be a jerk. For all the assured direction and exotic locales—including a jaunt to Paris—Beth’s internal journey is the most captivating element of The Queen’s Gambit. The series may border on wish fulfillment at times, but at least it casts a spell.
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Oct 22, 2020
Season 1 Review:
If Anya Taylor-Joy is on the cusp of major stardom -- with a "Mad Max" prequel in her future, and "The New Mutants" and "Emma" in her recent past -- The Queen's Gambit should advance her several moves ahead. The tale of a troubled chess prodigy, Taylor-Joy's magnetic presence is enough reason to watch this handsome Netflix limited series, even if the seven-part production gets dragged out about three episodes too long.
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Oct 21, 2020
Season 1 Review:
It's a stylish period piece with the rambling-years momentum of a John Irving novel. Luscious production design and a darkly fascinating lead performance duel against mawkish sentiment and a messy final act. It's always fun to watch, even when it's playing emotional checkers.
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Oct 21, 2020
Season 1 Review:
“Gambit” never quite gets back to the charm of its Dickensian opening chapter, though, and it gets thinner as it goes along. Frank pulls off his combination of themes with a lot of old-Hollywood-style skill, but in the mix, neither the sports nor the personal-demons story line hits the levels of visceral excitement or emotional payoff that you might want. In the end, it was an admirable package that I wanted to love more than I did.
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Oct 20, 2020ColliderOct 23, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The front half of the miniseries features a fair share of compelling enough drama, in an appealingly “slow-and-low prestige simmer” that gave me Mad Men vibes. ... And yet, Taylor-Joy tends to play this character at an arms-folded, detached, deadpan/forlorn pitch. ... Perhaps the show’s reliance on the same narrative beat over and over again, its need to run the playbook with no surprise, its comfort in empty moments of non-energy for no sake proves that certain chess strategies remain better dramatized, rather than applied to a filmmaking mode itself.
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The TelegraphOct 23, 2020
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