This conversation started with mosdef saying this:
So I was arguing that it didn’t work on the level of straightforward story.
Also while it’s easy to get pejorative about “sports movie cliche”, I’d argue that story structure is a good thing which exists for a reason and it’s generally a good idea for straightforward stories to follow it. I doubt you’re about to mount an argument that Queen’s Gambit is high art that doesn’t need to bother with that training-wheels shit.