Actors from other countries come to Hollywood and end up speaking excellent English — or American — for their movie roles. Kevin Kline has reversed that procedure, learning French and speaking it in "Queen to Play," a gentle little film that equates chess with seduction, with pleasure but without touching. Set in Corsica, it opens here today
Kline and French actress Sandrine Bonnaire co-star in the enjoyable tale directed by Caroline Bottaro, making her directorial debut in a movie adapted from a novel by Bertina Henrichs. Bonnaire is Helene, a not-quite middle-aged woman who keeps house for her longshoreman husband and their teen-aged daughter. She also works as a chambermaid in a fancy resort hotel, and she cleans, once a week, for a reclusive physician (Kline).
One day, at the hotel, she notices a couple (Jennifer Beals and Dominic Gould) on a balcony playing chess. From the body language, it's a match as serious as their relationship, and when Beals wins, and flashes a triumphant smile at Bonnaire, the Corsican woman is hooked. Thinking that chess may be a way to brighten up her own marriage, she buys him an electronic chess game for his birthday.
He is not amused; neither is their daughter, who is a tyrannical teenager, extremely upset because she comes from what she considers a "poor" family. But Helene is hooked, playing with the game constantly, visualizing chess moves as she cleans a checkered floor, using pieces of bread as pieces when she sits at a table with a checkered cloth. And she finds a set in Kline's house, and convinces him to teach her more about the game.
The film plays out as one would expect, emphasizing the problem shown in movies or books about sports or games. But there's a marvelous scene between Bonnaire and Kline, playing a match without a board or pieces, speaking the moves, pondering their responses. Both actors are simply superb, and it's a glorious high point in a nifty little movie.
Queen to Play opens today at the Plaza Frontenac.
—Joe