Tobey McGuire is superb in his portrait of Fischer, increasingly arrogant and demanding, and also depicted as developing paranoia as he sees conspiracy against him everywhere. He is Jewish, yet begins to utter anti-Semitic declarations. We watch what is shown to be an increasing breakdown. And yet the genius of his chess playing is kept to the fore.

Other performances add to the film’s overall impact. You might think that Liev Schreiber really is Russian in his convincing turn as Spasky. Michael Stuhlbarg is excellent in portraying the exasperation he finds as Fischer’s manager, Paul Marshall, trying to handle the chess star’s temperament and ever-mounting demands. Peter Sarsgaard plays Father Bill Lombardy with steady sympathy for Fischer as a result of a long-time association and dedication in trying to calm the explosiveness that accompanies Fischer’s mounting success and erratic behavior.

There is plenty of period atmosphere packed into the film. Always present is the underlying question: what price genius? What can be expected when a boy becomes a prodigy and his life charges forward in one direction, with a mind constantly occupied with visions of chess moves and counter-moves?

Although there is much drama around the competition, this is not a film that will lay out in details the actual playing of famous games. Thus chess enthusiasts will not have that sort of a film to follow. There are snippets of chess move highlights, but the thrust of the film lies in the dramatic confrontations, the close-up portrait of Fischer and the decline his life ultimately takes after his rock-star kind of fame.