The Luzhin Defence is a 2000 romantic drama film directed by Marleen Gorris, starring John Turturro and Emily Watson.

The film centres on a mentally tormented chess grandmaster and the young woman he meets while competing at a world-class tournament in Italy.

Valentinov tells the Italian that Luzhin cannot handle pressure and he intimates he will make sure that his former prodigy will be unsettled off-table, giving Turati a winning chance.

Nevertheless, even while recuperating Valentinov comes around with a chess board encouraging Luzhin to finish the match with the Italian, Turati.

However, on the morning of the wedding, Luzhin is put into a car with Valentinov, who tells him that there is the small matter of finishing the competition.

Dazed, cut and mentally confused, he stumbles back to the hotel where he tries to dig up the rest of the glass chess pieces he buried on the grounds years ago, (1:36:39 "I've got the King but I need the whole army...") but he does not find them.

Luzhin, who is in his muddied wedding suit, sits in his room as Natalia and the hotel staff try to open the door.

Nabokov based The Defense on the life of German chess master Curt von Bardeleben, who seemingly committed suicide by leaping from a window in 1924.

Budapest, Hungary was used for outdoor scenes as they were set in St Petersburg, these included the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Hungarian National Museum and Heroes' Square.

His fiancé later found a piece of paper inside his jacket where he had written down his intended final moves against Turati.

The scene shows White (Luzhin) play an apparently brilliant combination culminating in a queen sacrifice followed by Rd1-d8#.

Nevertheless, Luzhin (White) is shown playing the illegal winning move to wild applause from the audience.