This movie is a semi-biopic of the life of chess great Bobby Fischer. The film goes a long way in showing the old adage that Genius (almost always to a man) courts madness to some degree. Fischer is a great example of a man (like Isaac Newton) who was extremely creative and intelligent in one area of his life and simple minded, to the point of being an idiot, in another. While the film is primarily about chess, the time period in which the majority of the movie is set, (the cold war years of the sixties and seventies) provides the driving under-current for the film.
History buffs will enjoy this one, not only for the cold-war nods but also for the chess history, as Fischer is compared to 19th century Chess prodigy, Paul Morphy several times due to his irrational and odd behavior both in front of the public and behind the scenes.
The film stars Tobey Maguire as Fischer with a great supporting cast of Liev Schreiber Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg.