Veteran communist grand master “Akiva” (Michel Piccoli) is in Geneva for the world chess championships against lapsed Soviet “Pavius” (Alexander Arbatt) and it’s quite a grudge match. He won’t even shake his opponent’s hand beforehand. It’s fairly clear that this older man has health issues, but his adversary is not without his own problems as his wife - whom he didn’t defect with - is now seeking a divorce and is soon a pawn of a different kind. With gamesmanship rife inside and outside the press-packed auditorium, this drama follows both men as it fills in some back story and tries to explain why the men are at a loggerheads - all amidst the politics of winning that was publicly crucial to both teams and their ideologies. If you remember the Spassky and Fischer contest from the early 1970s, you’ll appreciate just how much store was set by these intellectual versions of the Cold War and this tries to capitalise a little on those tensions, but the breakneck speed at which the games are played - with little focus on the strategy or skill involved, leaves us devoid of much that is cerebral here. Instead it focuses more on the melodrama of their lives and with a production that lacks for much by way of imagination, I felt underwhelmed by both their characterisations and the undercooked political machinations that promised much, but that delivered little. It’s watchable enough, but I’ve seen more dangerous moves on a dance floor at 3am.
