"Queen to Play" is a sweet, small, powerful film about a cleaning woman's discovery of passion and dignity through chess. Sandrine Bonnaire plays Helene, a 40 something cleaning woman on the tourist island of Corsica. She's got a nice, handsome, construction worker husband, a snotty teenage daughter struggling through growing pains, an imperious boss at a resort hotel, and a quiet, reasonable, low-rent life. One day Helene picks up the game of chess, and everything changes. Chess engages her mind and passion. For the sake of learning more about the game, she does things she never would have done, otherwise. She asks a man she cleans for, Dr. Kroger (Kevin Kline) to play with her. The grouchy older man rebuffs her at first, but she offers to clean for free, and he accepts. "Do you always look at people as if your life depended on their answer to your question?" Dr. Kroger asks her. In fact Helene's life does depend on her newfound passion for chess. Helene demands time to learn about the game. She is distracted in conversations were before she might have listened more sympathetically or joined in petty, local gossip. She schedules hours alone with a man. She answers back to demanding customers at the resort. She snaps at her family, "Would it kill you to cook your own dinner for one night?" Just who does Helene think she is? She is, after all, only a cleaning woman, the chess club president reminds her. His arrogance will not serve him well when he butts up against Helene. "Queen to Play" is a small film. The script is spare. The film is lovely but not spectacular. Sandrine Bonnaire's great beauty and her performance are its best special effect. I wish there had been a bit more depth and development. But what is here is really powerful. We've gotten so used, in the US, to thinking of injustice and prejudice as being, primarily, about black versus white. "Queen to Play" shows how being a cleaning woman is itself a handicap in society, how expectations can squash a human being, and the price people pay for even the most simple gesture of coloring outside the lines of others' expectations. I admire and like Helene as I do few other film heroines. And I'd love to see Bonnaire play a saint someday. Her face is made for it.

Such a small, bland word.Yet, if you have ever felt the slightest sense of wonder you know what a big feeling it is.For her it's chess. Trapped in a small life, struggling to find herself.Enter reluctant master.So many people are scarred by their dreams. Miserable, because the life they imagine is so much better than the life they have.Takes courage to step into the unknown and more than a little desire. Whether she has enough of both is what the movie is about.The cast, crew and locale all come together to bring the story to life.Not something one can recommend. You will be moved by it or not.Wish them well. Hope to see more from them.Thank you.

From the first scene I wanted to physically BE where this film was made. The location shots are absolutely stunning. Hèléne (Sandrine Bonnaire) is a maid who works in a hotel as well as the private home of an expat American, Dr. Kröger (Kevin Kline). While at the hotel, you get the impression that she is harangued and bothered all day long. She is an invisible worker who people only notice when they have something to complain about. However, on this particular day, one of the rooms she enters has a young couple playing chess on the veranda. They are separated from her by nothing more than a loose, sheer panel that sways gently in the breeze but they may as well be miles away. They beckon her to enter the room and she does but she cannot take her eyes off of them while half-heartedly trying to focus on cleaning the room. They each in turn notice her prolonged gaze but they do not mind. She is asked if she plays chess and says no. In that instant, she realizes the great chasm between her life and the two lovers on the veranda. They are carefree, they are in love, they are fulfilled, they are confidant, they are happy, they understand the game. She perceives their status to be out of her reach. She wants to occupy that space but she just doesn't know how nor does she truly believe that she can.By the end of the movie, we see Hèléne achieving her goal of playing an intellectually stimulating and sensually arousing game of chess with her own secret lover but her version far surpasses the scene she first glimpsed early on in the film that started the whole ball rolling. The last chess scene is a scene that says so much about the characters, their deep understanding of the game, their devotion and love to each other, intellectual equals duking it out with an invisible board and chess pieces all visualized and strategized in their minds. Their moves are whispered quietly, eyes transfixed on each other, as they parry for the win. The scene plays homage to the superficially simple yet complex game of chess and to the deep and abiding friendship and love between Dr. Kröger and Hèléne. She always had the power, she just didn't know it, nor did she understand how to use it. Dr. Kröger filled in the blanks and then some. The last scene between them is probably one of the best love scenes I've ever had the privilege to see on screen. And so I leave you with this: Wow!P.S. I found it interesting how this film compares and contrasts with the Japanese film, "Shall We Dance".

Helene, a married woman in Corsica, works as a maid in a local hotel to help her husband, a dock worker, make ends meet. One day, as she goes to clean up a room, she is surprised to find the couple staying in it out in the balcony engaged in a game of chess. It intrigues her the way the young woman beats her man, in what appears to be skillful playing.Helene also cleans the house of a lonely American widower, Kroger, living in seclusion in a big mansion. She discovers her employer owns a set of chess. Kroger, entering the room she is cleaning, sees her observing the pieces of the game, and politely asks her to put it back where she found the box. Helene decides this is a game she must learn. It will be her way to escape her dreary life.As her husband's birthday nears, she buys him an electronic chess set, something that baffles him. Little does he realize the game is not for him, but for her. Helene gets bold when she asks Kroger to teach her to play chess in exchange for her cleaning the house for nothing. He agrees, and thus begins a strange relationship between these odd couple that apparently has nothing in common.The game begins to take hold of Helene in ways she never suspected. Her work at the hotel suffers because all she thinks is about moves and timing as she prepares herself mentally for the meetings with Kroger. Helene becomes so good she beats Kroger almost continuously, something that pleases him. They even share a game where each one go through movements in their minds without a board. They discover an intimacy that will not go beyond the afternoon sessions. In the process, Helene gains respect to make it in the local tournament and the possibility of making something else of her life.This is a delicious film that will delight chess players and even people that have no idea about the game. "Joueuse" is the first film by Caroline Bottaro, which she adapted from a Bertina Henrichs novel. The game, in a way, is a metaphor, one in which Helene gets empowerment through her knowledge of a game that is dominated by males. It is also a sort of liberation for the Corsican housewife without any possible future other than being a maid because she has no other skills. Her determination to succeed is bigger than all the obstacles that come her way.An inspired Sandrine Bonnaire, one of France's leading actresses, is a joy to watch in the film. Ms. Bonnaire is usually seen in more dramatic fare, but she makes a delightful contribution to the success of this movie. Kevin Kline surprises as Kroger, the enigmatic man suffering an unknown lung disease which never comes clear. The relationship between Helene and Kroger is never sexual, although there is an electric current between them all the time.Strongly recommended for fans of chess and for the strong combination of Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline under the direction of talented Caroline Bottaro, a new talent in the French cinema.