This movie is absolutely beautiful to watch, with its magnificent old-world settings through which Luzhin, the obsessed chess grandmaster, moves in oblivious cerebration. Emily Watson is excellent as the beautiful young woman who tries to stay Luzhin's descent into insanity, and John Turturro does his best with Luzhin himself.
But I don't think Vladimir Nabokov would've liked this movie much. For one thing, the pop-psychologizing the screenplay inflicts on Luzhin blurs and ultimately ruins the purity of his madness. And there is the matter of Luzhin's name. Throughout the novel, for reasons that become clear as you read it, he is known only as "Luzhin," even to his wife, until, on the very last page, we learn his name and patronymic, "Aleksandr Ivanovich." But in the movie, everyone calls him Aleksandr Ivanovich; his wife even calls him "Sascha." Huge mistake.
Worst of all, the happy/sappy ending, with its preposterous posthumous victory for Luzhin, is so far removed from the tragedy of Nabokov's novel that it's actually offensive. I assume Nabokov's ending was deemed too stark and horrifying.
But I don't think Vladimir Nabokov would've liked this movie much. For one thing, the pop-psychologizing the screenplay inflicts on Luzhin blurs and ultimately ruins the purity of his madness. And there is the matter of Luzhin's name. Throughout the novel, for reasons that become clear as you read it, he is known only as "Luzhin," even to his wife, until, on the very last page, we learn his name and patronymic, "Aleksandr Ivanovich." But in the movie, everyone calls him Aleksandr Ivanovich; his wife even calls him "Sascha." Huge mistake.
Worst of all, the happy/sappy ending, with its preposterous posthumous victory for Luzhin, is so far removed from the tragedy of Nabokov's novel that it's actually offensive. I assume Nabokov's ending was deemed too stark and horrifying.