34 | NOVEMBER 12 • 2020 

NOW STREAMING: A 
SCANDAL, CHESS & WAR
A Teacher is a nine-epi-
sode mini-series that began 
streaming on Hulu on Nov. 
10. Basic plot: Claire (Kate 
Mara), a popular high school 
teacher, enters into an affair 
with a handsome senior, and 
their lives “explode” when 
the affair becomes known. 
Ashley Zukerman, 36, an 
Australian Jew, plays Claire’s 
supportive, loving husband. 
The series was written and 
directed by Hannah Fidell, 
34. Her mother is Linda 
Greenhouse, 73, the NY 
Times’ Pulitzer-winning legal 
correspondent.
Now streaming on Netflix 
is The Queen’s Gambit, a 
new seven-part mini-series. 
based on the acclaimed 
novel of the same name. 

Many tried to turn Gambit 
into a film but gave up. It’s 
hard to turn a novel about 
tournament chess into an 
exciting drama. However, 
critics agree that Scott 
Frank, 60, who co-wrote 
the series and directed it, 
has succeeded. Frank has a 
long track record of turning 
novels and comic books into 
hit films (Get Shorty, Minority 
Report, The Wolverine and 
Logan). He broke into direct-
ing with Godless, a 2017 
original Netflix series that 

he also wrote. It is a feminist 
Western with great action 
scenes. Critics loved it and 
so did audiences. I loved 
the fact that Frank worked 
in a poem by Hebrew poet 
Judah Halevi (1075-1171) into 
the last scene.
Gambit follows the life of 
Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-
Joy). Her mother dies when 
she is 8 and she is put in an 
orphanage. Chess becomes 
her psychic refuge and 
she quickly shows she’s a 
prodigy. The series follows 
her from the orphanage to 
the highest ranks of inter-
national tournament chess. 
Marielle Heller, 41, has a 
large supporting role as Mrs. 
Wheatley, a woman who 
adopts Beth when she is 16. 
Heller is best known as a 
director (Diary of a Teenage 
Girl and A Beautiful Day in 
the Neighborhood). 
The Israeli series Valley 
of Tears premiered on Israel 
TV in mid-October. HBO Max 
saw it then, bought it and 

“super-fast tracked” it (good 
new material is hard to find 
during the pandemic). On 
Nov. 2, it was announced 
that the first two of the 
series’ 10 episodes would 
stream on HBO Max on Nov. 
12. Each following week, 
two more episodes will be 
shown. Valley is the most 
expensive Israeli series ever 
made. 
“Valley of Tears” was the 
name given to the Yom 
Kippur War battles in the 
Golan Heights, where 173 
Israeli tanks stopped 1,200 
Syrian tanks from reaching 
the Jordan River. The series 
was filmed just before the 
pandemic. It was co-written 
by Ron Leshem, 41. He also 
co-created Euphoria, an 
Israeli TV series that became, 
in its American version, a hit 
for HBO. Leshem served in 
Israeli military intelligence 
and for three years reported 
on events in the Golan and 
the West Bank for a leading 
Israeli paper. 

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