Conflict

The 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer revolves around the relationship between Josh Waitzkin, a young chess prodigy, and his father and teachers as they navigate the world of competitive chess. Josh, a seemingly ordinary seven-year-old, stumbles upon a group of outcasts playing speed chess in the park and becomes infatuated with the game. His first interaction with chess in the park leads him to meet Vinny, a man who will eventually add an outside perspective to his formal chess lessons. After Josh’s parents Fred and Bonnie discover his interest and talent in chess, they hire a famous chess coach Bruce Pandolfini to teach him. As Josh excels and starts winning more tournaments, the relationships he has between his father, his instructor Bruce, and Vinny from the park play an increasingly dimensional role in his development.

Early on, the relationship between Josh and his father is fraught with internal conflicts between Josh’s skill and not wanting to outdo or disappoint his own father. His father, a sportswriter, has always assumed Josh wanted to play baseball, and Josh struggles in his decision to be something other than his father expected. At first, his father does not really understand the world of chess and tries to fit the game into his existing world view of competitive sports, and becomes a source of stress for Josh, who wants to please his father. Josh’s father, after realizing his son’s gifts, puts more pressure on Josh to live up to his potential. Josh is forced to work through his own fears of losing matches, with the looming expectations of his father and his own achievement of being ranked highest for his age.

Another source of internal conflict for Josh is the difference in playing styles taught to by Josh’s two teachers. Bruce Pandolfini teaches Josh a formal tournament style, as opposed to the wild and aggressive style of chess taught to him in the park by Vinny. Black and white chess metaphors aside, the vastly different styles force Josh to choose between the rigorous aspect chess and the fun aspect of chess. As Josh enters more tournaments and is increasingly recognized as a upcoming player in the chess world, he has to deal with the pressure of being seen as a great player and his own desire to be a regular kid. This leads Josh to having commitment issues to the game of chess, that are only exacerbated by the pressure of his father to do well and perform at the highest level. This leads Josh to a breakdown, where he tries to remove the conflict by failing on purpose. After the breakdown, Bruce puts more pressure on Josh to succeed and tries to teach Josh that winning is more important than anything. Josh, while being compared to the greatest player of all time, Bobby Fischer, loses more and more often to another young star, creating a tension between who he is and who his father thinks he should be.

Josh learns to resolve his internal struggles by finding balance in his playing for fun and playing in tournaments. He becomes his own player by resolving the differences in the styles of his teachers, while demonstrating to his father that he can win or lose and still be happy and content with his skills.

Personal Connection

In my own life, parental expectations to achieve at a high level in school were often a source of my own internal conflict. This experience is similar to Josh’s where I showed talent in school early on and was always expected to outperform everyone else in class. As Josh is often compared to Bobby Fischer, I was compared with my older siblings who did well in school, who left very little more to achieve. I struggled to live up to what was expected, while wanting to do the things that I found more interesting. Josh’s development is different since his rise in the chess world takes place over a much shorter time than my time in school, which was mainly in middle and high school. Since I was at a different age, I was perhaps more able to deal with the conflicts of finding my place in the world than a very young child would have to be.

Josh eventually goes on to win the national chess tournament, seemingly to help end some of his internal conflicts between appeasing his father and teachers and proving his own competency. Josh’s personality solidifies more after the tournament and is less of a mirror of his father’s and Bruce’s focus on winning. All in all, Josh finds meaning in his internal struggles with greatness and a fear of disappointing those around him because he finds his own values of balancing fun with work to pay off more than the narrow view of competing only to win.