Le Tournoi (2015)
Directed by Elodie Namer

Film Review

Richard Dembo's La Diagonale du fou (1984) proves that chess and cinema are not mutually exclusive and can work together to make an enticing film with considerable public appeal.  Elodie Namer's Le Tournoi proves the exact opposite, a trashy teen movie that uses a chess tournament merely as an easy gimmick to try and set it apart from all the other trashy teen movies that cinema audiences have had to endure in recent years.  Before she made this, her debut feature, Namer pursued a career in French television, which included a stint on Loft Story, the French equivalent of Big Brother, a reality show in which sad and seriously mal-adjusted members of the public make pathetic attempts to become famous by disgracefully ill-treating all of their fellow contestants.

At times, Le Tournoi can hardly help looking like a self-consciously sexed-up teen edition of Loft Story, albeit with far less sustained creative flair and considerably less in the way of a coherent narrative. The charismatic Michelangelo Passaniti shows some promise in the lead role but as his chess-obsessed character is little more than a two-dimensional archetype of the nauseating super-brat variety his efforts are grimly wasted.  The same goes for his supporting artistes, Lou de Laâge, Magne-Håvard Brekke and Adam Corbier - all capable performers, all sacrificed to the cause of mediocrity.

For those who like their teen movies to be well marinated in a bountiful quantity of raw cliché and tacky vulgarity, offering next to nothing in the way of characterisation or genuine human interest, then Namer's juvenile pop assault on the game of chess certainly delivers.  Crass and formulaic to a fault, with characters that are as charmless as they are shallow, Le Tournoi is more difficult to sit through than an amateur chess tournament played in slow motion.  Its author's misguided attempts to bring mainstream appeal to an arcane discipline by resorting to the most abject of devices backfire spectacularly.

Film Synopsis

A seven day chess tournament is under way at a luxury hotel in Budapest.  The favourite to win is Cal Fournier, the 22-year-old French champion who smashes his opponents with a prodigious power.  An immature genius, Cal is totally disconnected from the world around him.  When he is not absorbed in playing chess, he amuses himself in the cruel games he plays with his girlfriend Lou and friends Aurélien, Anthony and Mathieu.  His familiar routine is about to be thrown into turmoil by a most unexpected adversary, a nine-year-old Hungarian prodigy who threatens to rob him of his hard-won title...