The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown April 26, 2024

Paging Bobby Fisher. Paging Bobby Fisher. Bobby? Mr. Fisher? Hm. Queen's Gambit? Paging Queen's Gambit. Would Ms. Harmon come to the front? Ms. Elizabeth Harmon? Sigh. The Luzhin Defence takes an already difficult book to adapt to film -- expatriate Russian author Vladimir Nabokov's cold, calculating, exquisitely clever novel of the same name -- and smears away everything that matters, drastically changing the exploration at its core and leaving only the faintest shadows of its characters splashed against a wall. John Turturro and Emily Watson are perfectly cast and well suited to the roles of Nabokov's tortured, eccentric chess extraordinaire and the young woman that catches his eye, but screenwriter Peter Berry and director Marleen Gorris are too obsessed with the crazy and crazy-stupid-love in the story to flesh out anything meaningful or poignant. The result is a sweeping bit of flimsy Hollywood sentimentality that falls flat, offers so much heart that it ends up offering very little heart at all, and grows unintentionally funny when it's desperately trying to evoke the deeper, more painful trials and tribulations of a fractured mind.

Russian chess player Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin (Turturro) arrives in Italy to compete in a 1920s international competition that draws the best of the best from all over the globe. While there, he stumbles into a physical and deeply emotional relationship with Natalia Katkov (Watson), a woman whose mother (Geraldine James) vehemently opposes her daughter's interest in the strange, mentally unbalanced chess master. Luzhin's chief rival in the tournament is Salvatore Turati (Fabio Sartor), a genius and chess master in his own right -- though also a man at risk of losing badly to Luzhin -- who learns how to exploit his nemesis's mental illness from Luzhin's former tutor, Leo Valentinov (The Legend of Zorro's Stuart Wilson). As Luzhin grows more and more madly in love with Natalia, he loses his grip on reality and his sanity, setting the stage for tension and tragedy on the world stage. The film also stars Peter Blythe, Orla Brady, Mark Tandy, Kelly Hunter, Alexander Hunting (as young Luzhin in flashbacks), Christopher Thompson, Luigi Petrucci, Carlo Greco and Massimo Sarchielli.

If you haven't read Nabokov's novel (which I'm guessing most haven't), The Luzhin Defence will merely play like a schmaltzy love story tipping on the edge of comic madness. Fine fluff but nothing all that remarkable or memorable. If you have read the novel (reviewer's hand raises), your brow will furrow within minutes of the film's opening sequence and you'll grow increasingly agitated with how loosely and carelessly Berry and Gorris handle a rich, gripping source that retains little other than story beats and plot structure. (Thankfully the final moments of the book are kinda, sorta preserved, although even they end up being botched rather badly.) Gone are the razor-wire mechanics of the novel, the nail-biting intensity, the nervous energy and callous inner-workings of Luzhin's mind, and the intentional disconnect we're meant to have for the cast of characters. Gone are the winding, masterfully crafted nuances of Nabokov's pacing. Gone is anything that would elevate the film and make it a more complex, engaging or thought-provoking study of a man losing touch with himself and everything that might ground him. Gone, really, is Nabokov's novel, replaced by two pages of material haphazardly plucked from a Cliff Notes booklet. As a movie it serves up a shoulder-shrug period romance with similarities to A Beautiful Mind (which is being kind). As an adaptation it simply fails in every way. Well, nearly.

Somewhere in all that messiness are two actors doing their best to manifest bits and pieces of the novel in an effort to create star-crossed lovers as intriguing and smitten with one another as they are selfish, conflicted and uncertain. Their work is at odds from everything from the hemmed-in cinematography to the score, as though the screenplay weren't already pushing against them, and the third act loses steam as suddenly as it attempts to gain it despite Turturro and Watson digging into the thespian's go-to bag of dramatic tricks. As a whole, melodrama replaces anything that lives and breathes, while gut punches and dark turns seem tacked on rather than properly weaved into the narrative. I'm no doubt being too hard on the film, as if The Luzhin Defence is a beloved award-winner whose warm reception by audiences and critics baffles me. On the contrary, The Luzhin Defence is a largely forgotten blip of a movie in a sea of critically panned, well-intentioned films that didn't capture their audiences' imaginations. For whatever reason, though, this one really gets under my skin. Perhaps it's the talent involved. Perhaps the deceptive ease with which the novel succeeds. Perhaps because I tend to love Turturro and Watson's performances and see them as actors who typically choose strong projects. Or perhaps The Luzhin Defence is just that disappointing. If you've come this far, you'll ultimately have to decide for yourself.

The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hailing from an era of smeary, hyper-scrubbed DVDs, the Blu-ray release of The Luzhin Defence features a problematic 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer minted from a dated master sorely in need of a restoration. Colors are decent on the whole, though skin tones generally lean toward a faint pinkish hue, and contrast and black levels are relatively satisfying. Unfortunately, that's about where any praise ends. The film is soft, splotchy and devoid of anything resembling filmic grain, despite the fact that it was clearly once a part of the image. Fine textures have been scrubbed away -- almost entirely -- along with the exorcised grain, tossing the proverbial baby right out with the bath water. Take a moment to peruse the screenshots accompanying this review for just a small sampling of the results. Minor macroblocking and intermittent edge halos merely add insult to injury in a presentation that would've only earned average marks decades ago.

The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is better but still struggles to deliver a fully immersive Italy that sells the illusion of the film's place and time. Dialogue is clear and intelligible on the whole, with solid prioritization and very little in the way of subpar dynamics. LFE output adds some welcome weight and presence to key scenes, even if it's a touch too thin for its own good. Rear speaker activity is similar, doing its duty when Luzhin's paranoia and mental instability surges, but growing too distant and inexact when conversations dominate the soundscape. Directionality and channel pans are fine, though unremarkable, and the film's score sounds a tad pudgier than I suspect it should. There's nothing terribly wrong here, mind you. It just seems like an AV overhaul would produce notably measurable improvements.

The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sony ports three extras from the previously released DVD: a Director's Commentary with Marleen Gorris, a 3-minute standard definition Making-Of featurette and an SD presentation of the film's Theatrical Trailer. Nothing to write home about.

The Luzhin Defence Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Here it comes... there's just no defending The Luzhin Defence. Bah dum bum chsh! A mismanaged adaptation as bad as the preceding joke, it struggles to connect, abandons the things that made its source novel great, and squanders two great actors on Hollywood-ized melodrama. Sony's Blu-ray release isn't much better. With a terrible DVD-era video transfer, a decent lossless audio track, and rather disappointing extras, it belongs in a bargain bin, and will likely live out the rest of its days there.