England,
2000, 106 min
Shown in 2001
CREDITS
- dir
-
Marleen Gorris
- prod
-
Jody Patton
- scr
-
Peter Berry
- cam
-
Bernard Lutic
- editor
-
Michael Reichwein
- mus
-
Alexandre Desplat
- cast
-
John Turturro, Emily Watson, Geraldine James, Stuart Wilson, Christopher Thompson
- source
-
US - Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10022. FAX: 212-833-7911. WORLD - Renaissance Films, 34 35 Berwick Street, London W1C 3RF, England. EMAIL: info@renaissance-films.com
OTHER
An obsessive Russian chess master is struck by Eros’s arrow in this smoothly made period romance that’s elevated by strong playing from its whole cast. Peter Berry’s script, adapting a Vladimir Nabokov novel, is economical and light, balancing the story’s twin poles (chess and love) with skill, while Nabokov’s off-center approach to human emotions peppers the story in a satisfying way. Natalia (Emily Watson) meets her mother Vera at a ritzy Italian resort hotel. Vera thinks it’s time Natalia settled down, and tries to hook her up with a friendly young French count. However, Natalia, who has a history of being drawn to stray animals and eccentrics, is immediately fascinated by the shambling, unkempt chess master Luzhin (John Turturro). Their awkward love affair initially loosens up the tightly wound Russian, but a rival’s appearance soon forces a confrontation in Luzhin’s hair-trigger mind between love and chess. Evincing a slow-growing chemistry, Turturro and Watson manage the difficult task of making the odd-couple relationship work on screen. Turturro makes the almost extraterrestrial Luzhin a sympathetic, often funny figure, and Watson makes Natalia a tower of quiet strength, saying more with a raised eyebrow than anything in the script. Production values are lush, editing tight and the fine score gently cradles this story to a moving close.
—Derek Elley, Variety
FACTOID #300
When she attended the 1980 San Francisco International Film Festival for a tribute, Federico Fellini’s wife and muse Giulietta Masina, admitted that she accepted a bit part in the American film The Madwoman of Chaillot (despite the fact that she could not speak English) just so she could get costar Katherine Hepburn’s autograph.
