Bobby Fischer’s big moment happened when I was 2, so the greatest revelation of this documentary for me is that once upon a time even Americans had the attention span and intellectual ambition to go crazy for chess. Seeing such a static and sleepy game got top billing on Wide World of Sports was surreal. The closest analog I can think of is the poker boomlet of the early aughts, and Texas Hold ‘Em doesn’t exactly compete with the Game of Kings in the intellectual rigor department.

The movie relies heavily on interviews with people who were present at the Reykjavic match with Spassky and archival footage of Bobby being awkward in a variety of contexts. The interviewees are uniformly entertaining and insightful, and the footage of Bobby’s slow, tortured decoupling with his faculties will break your heart. It’s not really a spoiler to say that Bobby died an angry, troubled and dark soul tormented by the same obsessive turn of mind that made him great.

By this point, probably everyone who has an interest in the world of chess knows Bobby’s story, so the film doesn’t try to surprise. Instead, the film attempts to immerse you in the exquisitely uncomfortable moment that Bobby created in the world in 1972. It’s interesting to see how the Cold War attaches itself to everything in those days, so much so that we get to see Kissinger admit that he personally called Fisher to urge him on to Iceland for the greater glory of the West.
It’s interesting to watch people gathered around televisions and radios, following the progress of the title match as if it were a prize fight. There’s a little footage of the 19-year-old Hungarian girl who convinced Bobby to return to competition who I don’t remember seeing before.

The technical chess talk is very minimal, and you don’t need any specialized knowledge to enjoy the spectacle. I recommend it – it’s a well-crafted doc and a tragedy that only grows more poignant with the passage of time.