The Luzhin Defence (2000)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a disastrous interpretation of a fine novel which is saved from total catastrophe by a blindingly brilliant performance from the wonderful Emily Watson. She brings life and coherence to her character in a motion picture that is poorly directed and badly scripted, with acting from fellow cast members that leaves much to be desired. While this piece is far beneath the talents of Ms. Watson, she gives her usual all-out effort despite what must have been clear to her at the time. A film that darkens the screen with its lifelessness and confused story line is aflame whenever Emily Watson is in a scene and even the plot makes some sense. It is an astounding feat and only an actor of her acclaim could pull it off with such seeming effortlessness and aplomb. She has managed to do this in other films but never with so little to work with and with such disengaged fellow actors. It is as if everyone gave up and she was left to carry the burden of this cinematic wreck alone. That she does so in such a completely satisfying way, with such incredible skill and subtle power, is nothing less than astonishing and a wonder to witness. List this as one more cinema triumph for Emily Watson and rest assured that her performance is worth the effort you will make to sit through this awful movie and seeing her work her usual magic is very, very rewarding.

The good news is that the movie is beautifully filmed, the settings and period clothing are luscious, Emily Watson gave us a solid performance, as did Geraldine James as her screen mother. Sadly, that's about it. John Turturro gave us yet another wild eyed outing. It's beginning to look like that's all he can do. The villainous mentor is clichéd and we never learned the reason for his rancor. Indeed, the premise of the love story, that is the genius fool snagging the lovely poised heiress, is trite and implausible. The wedding day sequence also made no sense. Play chess on your way to the church? How could that ploy even be advanced? Although some reviewers found the ending to be a release, I thought it was another hackneyed device. If you want to see a film about chess, I suggest "Searching for Bobby Fischer", for a love story about people in disparate circumstances try "Chasing Amy". If "The Luzhin Defence" is neither, then what is it?

It was riveting the first time and equally so the second time. I couldn't stand to miss one word. I guess I was hooked on it. It dwarfs A Beautiful Mind; I don't know how you rated that one. The movie leaves you excited about being obsessed with anything you really love. I think it was the story that grabbed me, not whatever failings someone is guessing the film has. The beauty of loving Sasha, someone who is NOT off the yuppie assembly line. However, the good-heartedness of the yuppie (the mother's choice). The good-heartedness of Sash's opponent. The evil of only one bad apple. Its a beautiful world that must exist outside of reality. Certainly outside the borders of my country. It is what movies do...make us dream and wish it could be true.

I'm not sure what the people who produce a movie like this are really thinking. Even though I can appreciate an adaptation that radically alters plot, setting, and dialogue (I'm thinking here of Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye", which I've just recently seen), "The Luzhin Defence" tampers with the book's intelligence. Did the director and screenwriter think that Nabokov's characters were too boring? Didn't wear nice enough clothes? Talked too little? Or was the book not melodramatic enough for them? The combination, book and movie taken together, is itself something out of a Nabokov story; one detail of the story might have been the producers waiting for the author to die so that they could adapt his story in a way he would never have stood for.