Last week’s movie about the sadistic serial killer was kind of fun, but this one is really disturbing. When in Copycat someone goes around gleefully hacking women to pieces we were at least supposed to be horrified. The egoistical psychopath was the driving force behind the movie, but he was clearly the villain. In Holiday in handcuffs, however, the egotistical psychopath is the protagonist. The woman we’re supposed to be rooting for.1
The plot is as bizarre as it is perturbing: an unremarkable, rather frumpy woman has promised her parents to bring her boyfriend home for Christmas, but in the moment suprême, he dumps her. So she does the most sensible thing and kidnaps a handsome man at gunpoint to make him pretend to be her boyfriend. In a desperate bid to nevertheless appear like a reasonable human being, she plays chess with him
We get enough shots of the position that I feel fairly confident in my reconstruction:2
Looking at this position, I’m guessing the director knows from experience what a holiday in handcuffs is like, because this must be against a variety of laws. How did that pawn ever reach g6? Why is the only developed piece white has stuck in a terrible pin?
Why doesn’t white even recognize that it’s in a pin? Yes, it’s true. First, she touches the g2 pawn, but then she reconsiders and actually plays the patently absurd Nxd4. Thereby, any chance of ever being considered a reasonable human being are gone. But she soon realises her mistake and she asks to take back her move. Its supposed to be all symbolic, you see: one mistake, like kidnapping someone at gunpoint, can ruin your life like one mistake, like hanging a queen, can ruin a game of chess. But the analogy doesn’t work. In chess, time is discrete and it is indeed a single momentary mistake that can cost you your queen. In real life, however, the mistake of kidnapping someone is a prolonged process that the one with the gun could end at any point. So she’s still an egotistic psychopath.
Realism: 2/5 I guess most pieces are more or less where one would expect them. It’s a metaphor for the movie, perhaps: all the separate bits are normal, cliché even; but they are haphazardly glued together in some Frankensteinian horror.
Probable winner: Black. Even is he weren’t a rook up and he let her take back her last move, his opponent would still be the sort of person to lose a rook and a queen with no real compensation.3
1. [Probably in a trash heap.] ↩
2. [If you ever need to detain a chess position, I suggest these handcuffs.] ↩
3. [So she’s a stupid egotistical psychopath.] ↩