Description:
A sun-washed but pleasingly cerebral tale of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, Caroline Bottaro's Queen to Play uses chess as its vehicle for a heroine's taking wing. Yes, that's right, chess: and those of you rolling your eyes at the idea that the slow-moving brain-game might be a dynamic agent of change are in for a nice surprise. Chess is somehow just right for the wonderful Sandrine Bonnaire, grave-faced star of many a serious French film (Vagabond, Monsieur Hire). Bonnaire plays a chambermaid living with her family on the Corsican coast; while cleaning the rooms of glamorous types, she becomes intrigued by a couple p
A sun-washed but pleasingly cerebral tale of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, Caroline Bottaro's Queen to Play uses chess as its vehicle for a heroine's taking wing. Yes, that's right, chess: and those of you rolling your eyes at the idea that the slow-moving brain-game might be a dynamic agent of change are in for a nice surprise. Chess is somehow just right for the wonderful Sandrine Bonnaire, grave-faced star of many a serious French film (Vagabond, Monsieur Hire). Bonnaire plays a chambermaid living with her family on the Corsican coast; while cleaning the rooms of glamorous types, she becomes intrigued by a couple playing chess in seemingly intimate circumstances (the cameo by Jennifer Beals in these scenes is one of the film's only missteps). The maid's new enthusiasm--let's call it an obsession, actually--with the game leads her to unexpected mastery of it, a development that doesn't sit well with her blue-collar, traditional husband (Francis Renaud). Chess also brings her to the attention of an expat widower (Kevin Kline, executing his French dialogue with his usual precise aplomb), a picky fellow intrigued by this earnest woman who showed up to dust his shelves and now sits across from him at his chessboard. The movie's various evolutions may be a little too neat overall, but there's something about the solemnity of chess and the grounded-in-the-real-world demeanor of Sandrine Bonnaire that makes it all very gratifying to watch. She's not a pawn in anybody's game. --Robert Horton
... (more)
(less)
Manufacturer: Zeitgeist Films
Release date: 16 August 2011
EAN: 0795975113632 UPC: 795975113632
My tags:
Add tags
Login
