Searching for Bobby Fischer

Chess isn't the most compelling game going on in Searching for Bobby Fischer, a wonderfully photographed story about a 7-year-old prodigy (Max Pomeranc) on whom everybody's putting the moves: his consumed-with-winning dad (Joe Mantegna); his mom (Joan Allen), who wants her child back; and two competing mentors, Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley) and compassionate park-bench hustler Vinnie (Laurence Fishburne). Writer-director Steven Zallian, who adapted Schindler's List for Steven Spielberg, can't resist going E.T.-bathetic, but before that, the possibility that this child may wind up spindled by talent is riveting. A-