Video Reviews

May 13, 2001 - The Luzhin Defence

By The verdict: 6.5/10 ñ Too long, too slow, too reserved and too detached.

"The Luzhin Defence" is Marleen Gorris's adaption of Vladimir Nabokov's novella about a chess prodigy so wrapped up in his pursuit of the World Championship, that he has been unable to communicate with the outside world in a normal fashion. Perpetual oddball John Tuturro dives into his newest role so completely it's hard to imagine an actor underneath all those ticks and mumblings. His performance is sadly one of only a few reasons to go out of your way for this handsome but painfully slow and fitfully intriguing film.

The film opens in the late twenties on a serene lake in an Italian resort town as the top chess players converge on its hotel to vie for the World Title. Among them is Alexander 'Sascha' Luzhin (Tuturro) lost in thought as he works at developing a unique system of defence. In flashbacks we see his unhappy childhood and get an idea of why he seems incapable of 'normal' human interaction. Virtually abandoned by his father into the arms of a chess master who both trains him and takes financial advantage of his gifts while giving him no insight on how to adapt to the real world, he becomes lost when the master abruptly ends their arrangement and leaves him on his own. Scraping his way by, he arrives at the tournament years later to find his master returned and seeming to seek a friendship. At the same time he becomes smitten with one of the hotel's guests, a beautiful young woman named Natascha (Emily Watson) who he asks to become his bride before bothering to ask her name. Intrigued by this massive intellect chained to a boy's sensibilities, she agrees, much to the horror of her haughty mother, who immediately summons her father to talk some sense into Natascha, who has apparently taken leave of her senses. Why would she want this scruffy, poorly dressed, unkempt fool when she could have the suave, sophisticated French aristocrat mother has carefully picked out for her? Much of the rest is predictable: Natascha's family clashes over her attachment to Alexander, she tries bringing him out of his shell, he finds renewed confidence in his play, and of course his old master is secretly plotting to make sure Alexander loses because the master is now backing a rival.

Both Tuturro and Watson are perfect in their respective roles (although Tuturro's is the more showy) and Marleen Gorris goes to great pains with her cinematographer to make every scene a postcard. But the story wears thin ñ particularly Watson's baffling attraction to Tuturro ñ and drags on well past its welcome.

The verdict: 6.5/10 ñ Too long, too slow, too reserved and too detached.