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Norway · 2016
1h 16m
Director Benjamin Ree
Starring Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Henrik Carlsen, Espen Agdestein
Genre Action
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From a young age, Magnus Carlsen dreamed of becoming a champion chess player. Brought to life through archival footage and home movies, this documentary charts the child prodigy’s unusual and rapid trajectory to the pinnacle of the chess world, goingthrough his successes and struggles as he grows up in the spotlight.
Village Voice by Daphne Howland
Ree makes things easy for people who don't play chess, deftly pacing Carlsen's triumphs and failures and milking the suspense as "the Mozart of chess" employs his intuition to win, in an age when many players depend on computers to hone their skills.
Screen International by David D'Arcy
Magnus Carlsen, called the Mozart of chess, became world champion in 2013 at the age of 22. Benjamin Ree’s rousing documentary shows us how this taciturn prodigy got there, and how his family keeps him sane.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
[An] insipid and uninformative portrait of singularity and obsession.
The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth
Magnus is gifted with a tremendous opportunity and mostly squanders it, creating a profile that certainly admires Carlsen, but does little to uncover the methodology or magic behind the dazzling display he demonstrates on the board.
We Got This Covered by Lauren Humphries-Brooks
To make a movie about such an elusive figure is a challenging undertaking, and it’s a testament to the quality of Magnus that the film succeeds as well as it does.
The Guardian by Leslie Felperin
Even though director Benjamin Ree has accessed the family archive of footage showing young Magnus as a socially awkward prodigy through the years and interviewed him directly many times, the film barely dents his inviolate wall of polite reticence.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
The loneliness of the long-distance chess grandmaster is affectingly conveyed in Magnus.
It’s too brief to convey the intellect and almost mystical ability that underpin Carlsen’s success.
Magnus, it turns out, is the anti-Bobby: a fascinatingly “normalized” prodigy.
[Ree] virtually never surprises us, making his film more a celebratory hagiography for proud Norwegians than anything the rest of the world, in and out of chess, can embrace.
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