The Luzhin Defence

The Luzhin Defence is a 2000 film directed by Marleen Gorris, starring John Turturro and Emily Watson. The film centres on a mentally tormented chess grandmaster and the young woman he meets while competing at a worldclass tournament in Italy. The screenplay was based on the novel The Defense or The Luzhin Defence by Vladimir Nabokov.

Its the early 1920s and Aleksandr Ivanovich Sascha Luzhin Turturro, a gifted but tormented chess player, arrives in a Northern Italian city to compete in an international chess competition. Prior to the tournament he meets Natalia Katkov Watson and he falls in love with her almost immediately. She in turn finds his manner to be appealing and they begin to see each other in spite of her mothers disapproval.Competing alongside Luzhin in the championship is Dottore Salvatore Turati Fabio Sartor, who is approached by Leo Valentinov Stuart Wilson, a Russian, who is Luzhins former chess tutor from prerevolutionary Russia. Valentinov tells the Italian that Luzhin cannot handle pressure and he intimates he will make sure that his former prodigy will be unsettled offtable giving Turati a winning chance. ........

Source: Wikipedia