Review of Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011) by Trailesque — 17 Mar 2021

This is an excellent, thorough look at the life of chess genius Bobby Fischer - his life, his short but brilliant career, and his downfall. Fischer comes across as a gifted, obsessive fanatic. When he devoted himself to chess, he became the best in the world, perhaps the best ever.

But the film shows us his painful childhood, as the son of a flaky mother who abandoned him at age 16, literally left him and his sister alone in a Brooklyn apartment. We get a brief look at his biological father, who tried to be there for him but who died at a young age.

The name Fischer came from one of his mom's boyfriends, who apparently was not in the picture for long. Bobby was a king in the world of chess, but a lost soul in the world at large, and eventually became paranoid and loony, embracing anti-semitism (he was Jewish) and an extreme Christian church, before appearing on the world stage again toward the end of his life.

Fischer's life was a frequently sad, but fascinating, story, and we see a lot of it thru the eyes of his good friends, which he did have several of. There is some good archival footage included too, especially from the famous match between Fischer and Spassky.

It is hard to picture how this documentary could be made any better.