While tidying up a room in a Corsican hotel, a French maid notices a couple on the balcony engaged in a chess match and become immediately interested in the game. While working at her second job, serving as a maid to a cranky American expatriate doctor, she discovers a chess board among his belongings and, after much beckoning, convinces him to teach her the game. "Queen to Play" is a quaint little film from director Caroline Bottaro, and is the kind of simple and observant human drama that the French do so well. In the lead role, Sandrine Bonnaire gives a winning performance as a repressed middle aged woman finally seeking out her dreams, and the real treat of the movie is watching Kevin Kline act in an entirely French speaking role! "Queen to Play" doesn't break new ground, but simply achieves its simple goal: to tell a perceptive and affecting story of a late bloomer and her new found talent.
