The Luzhin Defence

Set in the late 1920s, "The Luzhin Defence" tells the story of a shambling, unworldly chess Grand Master who arrives in the Italian Lakes to play the match of his life and unexpectedly finds the love of his life. Luzhin's lyrical passion for chess, for which he discovered his prodigious talent during a boyhood shadowed by his parents' failing marriage, has become his refuge and rendered the real world a phantom. Already matched up by her family to the very suitable Comte de Stassard, when Natalia meets Luzhin, she is drawn to the erratic genius and offers him a glimpse of life outside of his chess obsession. But it is a world he is not equipped to deal with and his two worlds tragically collide.