Susan Granger’s review of “THE LUZHIN DEFENSE” (Sony Pictures Classics)
It’s all about chess and madness, set in 1929 in the Lake Como region of Northern Italy, where the World Chess Championship is underway. The now-grown Russian prodigy Alexander Luzhin (John Turturro) is the favorite, and his mind is totally focused on winning – until he encounters a lovely Russian ŽmigrŽ, Natalia Katkov (Emily Watson), whose mother is determined to marry her off to the French nobleman Jean de Stassard (Christopher Thompson), a chess enthusiast who’s come to watch the tournament. Socially inexperienced and inept, Luzhin proposes marriage and, surprisingly, she accepts. But there’s opposition in the form of Luzhin’s former manager, Valentinov (Stuart Wilson), who is determined to see him lose. The suspense intensifies as the contest comes down to Luzhin and Turati (Fabio Sartor), the Italian Grand Master. Under intense mental pressure and becoming increasingly unstable, the obsessed Luzhin devises a brilliant set of moves, which come to be known as the Luzhin Defense. Checkmate! From the nicotine stains on his fingertips to his disheveled clothes and clipped, mono-syllabic speech, John Turturro is a superb actor but he goes overboard in demented eccentricity, muttering to himself and spinning circles in the rain, while Emily Watson exudes the required propriety and nurturing instincts. Based on “The Defense” by Vladimir Nabokov, adapted by Peter Berry and directed with a heavy-hand by Marleen Gorris (“Antonia’s Line,” “Mrs. Dalloway”), it’s as slow and ponderous as the game it depicts, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Luzhin Defense” is a sedate, simplistic, even dispiriting 5. If you’re intrigued by chess, I recommend renting “Searching for Bobby Fischer” (1993), a far superior film.
