Wordiezett So much average

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

c0nfuzi the premise is promising, the actors were great, the subject is deep. what could go wrong? well the script was at times either too much or predictable which turned me off. the characters were typical. when she had that argument with the Doctor, the scene is so random that it feels like they had to jeopardize the friendship right before the final act. the beginning was deceitful. the way she learns how to play chest is unrealistic. the outcome was deceitful. at the beginning, all the self-empowerment and self-fulfillement was all right, it's all inspiring until the main character decide to cheat her husband without guilt and consequences. just like that.

Armand a game. refuge, ladder, clothe. a woman. and her sense. an isle, gray family and meeting. a victory. slices of a friendship. Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline in a charming movie.a fake tale about chess. strange love story with nuances of fairy tale. or only exercise to define importance of heart for a shadow. not a great film but one like a Chopin fragment. puzzle of small and not important pieces. few drops of sentimental perfume and crumbs of ordinaries lives. some drawing of feminism and work of good cast. a movie about nothing as many others. but just emotions, fragments of images, dust of memories are important. this is chess lesson. a long and tense chess match and look of a woman as fruit of desire of a passing ghost.

peter henderson What is it that makes a film jump off the screen and into the confines of your consciousness, implanting itself there so that years later, when you watch it again, you realize you have been thinking about it in the interim, with pleasure. It has insinuated itself into the fabric of your life and you carry its memory around with you.If film makers could work out how and why that happens, their investors would sleep more soundly at nightQueen to Play (Joueuse) is such a film.Obviously its success is anchored in Sandrine Bonnaire's performance, but there is a lot more to it than that, wonderful as it is.The writing. The direction. The cinematography. The other actors. Whatever...The scripting is unfailingly delightful. It presents the initial impetus to investigate the game of chess - a beautiful, young woman playing the game with her lover, as the driving force that compels the protagonist to visit her husband at work just to touch him, to extricate her silky nightgown, to acquire an electronic chess game under the guise of giving her husband a birthday gift. It then documents the discovery of meaning and satisfaction in exploiting whatever it is that makes a person excel at some aspect of life, and the coincidental growth of desire by her husband to share that life spirit - the initial impetus for all the chess playing that follows. I would say it is "nice" were it not for the devaluation of meaning of that word. Let's just call it an examination of compulsion, That's what the film is really all about. And Bonnaire's range of expressions and demeanors feed that camera with all the raw material it needs to hold us, the viewers, captive for the duration of the film. Compulsively so, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.Actually there is more to it than that. There is that exultation of the human spirit that comes from the process of self actualization. It is a wonderful experience just to observe it up close and personal by watching this film.Compulsiveness, Obsessiveness. They are not just the province of adolescent boys with computer games

TxMike We saw this on Netflix streaming movies. French with English subtitles, it was not hard at all. In fact my wife, who usually avoids subtitled films enjoyed this one all the way through.The movie was filmed on the French Island of Corsica, roughly the size of Jamaica, not small at all. This provided for great scenery. The story centers on Sandrine Bonnaire as Hélène, diligently married with teenage daughter. They are solidly middle class, her husband works building boats, she works as a cleaning lady, in a local hotel and once a week for a man living alone in his country home. The man is American expat, Kevin Kline as Kröger, who seems a bit gruff most of the time and would rather be left alone. We don't find out too much about him except that his wife has died, and he still wears his wedding band. Plus he has a nice chess set on a table in his home.The story moves towards Sandrine Hélène's curiosity about the game of chess. She knows nothing about it, and sort of learns by using an inexpensive computer chess game given to her husband at his party. Very forthright she tells Kröger that she wants to play chess with him. So they set up 4PM on Tuesdays, he will give her an hour. But she stays up, sometimes all night until morning at home, trying to learn this game which fascinates her.The game is chess, but the story is about a woman who has settled into a very joyless routine in life, taken for granted by her husband and daughter, and having no intellectual outlet for herself. She gains something through her interest in chess and becomes a different person, a happier person, for it. SPOILERS: At first she is defeated quite easily by Kröger. She has no concept for the subtleties of the game and its strategy. So he softens up and teaches her, and soon he cannot beat her. She has a natural feel and talent for chess, he encourages her to participate in a high level amateur tournament, even though she did not belong to any club, had no ranking. But she defeats each opponent, and wins the tournament. This gives her fresh status in the community, more important gives her something of her own that she could enjoy. Maybe she (fictionally) eventually became an international chess champion!