Warsaw, Poland, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. Josh Mansky, a troubled math genius and former US chess champion, is recruited to hold a dangerous public match against the Soviet champion, while playing the deadly game of espionage hidden in the darkest shadows of a hostile territory.
Acting
Pullman's drunk genius walk is a masterclass in barely holding it together.
Production
Communist-era Warsaw recreated with suffocating authenticity.
Writing
Chess moves as coded spy tradecraft—actually clever, not pretentious.
Director
Łukasz Kośmicki
Bill Pullman
Joshua Mansky
Lotte Verbeek
Agent Stone
James Bloor
Agent White
Robert Więckiewicz
Alfred
Aleksey Serebryakov
Gienadij Krutow
Corey Johnson
Donald Novak
Nicholas Farrell
G. Moran
Evgeniy Sidikhin
Jurij Gawryłow
Cezary Kosiński
'John Gift'
Aleksandr Lobanov
Adiutant Krutowa
Wojciech Mecwaldowski
Magdalena Boczarska
Bartender Gienia
Andy Beckwith
Taxi in New York
John Benfield
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Łukasz Kośmicki is primarily a cinematographer—this was his feature debut, which explains the gorgeous misery.
The film was Poland's Oscar submission but got zero buzz because 2019 was stacked with Parasite and 1917. Criminal.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
PL
