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Uncovered
Teaser summary: Julia, an art restorer, discovers a 500 year old murder mystery in her current project. Shortly after that, people currently alive start dying, and it seems to be related to the painting. Also, her adoptive father is gay, and everyone is having affairs.
Spoiler summary, with loving attention to Peter Wingfield's role:
So this painting Julia's restoring shows two guys playing chess, with a lady in the background. She's had some sort of scan done on the painting--infrared, I think she said--and it shows that there's an inscription that was painted over, in the bottom corner of the painting. Terribly excited, Julia takes the infrared scan to her boss and friend, Menchu, an older woman in a leopard print dress--how very Mrs. Robinson.
Menchu is getting a blowjob from Peter Wingfield's character, Max, when Julia arrives. We see him rise from his knees and reach into his pants to adjust himself. Menchu regretfully dismisses him, and he walks past Julia licking his lips--which is when we are first introduced to Julia's delightful allergy to sexual situations.
Yes. The girl sneezes whenever she's aroused, romanced, or just plain hit on. Did I say delightful? I meant annoying. It's like Daniel Jackson's allergy to travel. Note to self: never give hero or heroine an endearing sneeze. It's not endearing.
Menchu and Julia work out that the inscription, which is in Latin, says "Who took the knight?", presumably in reference to the chess game the two men in the painting are playing. Montegrifo, the owner of the auction house for whom Menchu works, comes in. They coquettishly refuse to tell him about the mystery they've discovered. They leave Menchu's office in time to see Max get slapped by some woman, who calls him a slut. Menchu sighs and says it's Max's wife. But no matter! Menchu suggests that Julia go see someone named Alvaro about the painting, though Julia is reluctant, since she has some history with him. Menchu thinks Julia needs to get laid.
At some point in here, we're introduced to Cesar. He's Julia's gay old adoptive dad. He brings her some kind of pastry and she says he shouldn't have, because she thinks she's fat. Julia has a very boyish figure, as well as a very boyish haircut. She's not fucking fat. Actually, her figure isn't half-bad naked. She has nice breasts. Yet for some reason, she dresses in such a way that you can hardly tell she has breasts at all. Probably someone told her those dresses were slimming.
Julia goes to see Alvaro. She sees the last few minutes of a lecture in which he talks about how in some painting, Venus is naked except for her hat, and that if she were completely naked, all erotic tension would be lost. Hm, interesting. In the two instances in which we see Julia nearly naked, she retains her panties in one shot and a towel in the other. Ah, but I think that's to keep it to an R-rating, not for erotic tension.
Alvaro puts names to two of the people in the painting, based on the little labels conveniently placed over their heads. One of the guys is Duke Ferdinand of Ostenburg, a little principality that was being fought over by France and Burgandy 500 years ago. The woman is the Duchess, who happens to be from Burgandy. The other man is apparently a knight, although he's not named, so they're not sure who he is in relation to the other two. However, what tips them off that he's a knight is that the adjectives used to describe him are also often used to describe Lancelot. It should therefore be no surprise that it later turns out that the fair knight was diddling the Duchess. Alvaro puts the moves on Julia; she protests that she wants the relationship professional and sneezes, and leaves.
On the drive out the the castle of the owner of the painting, Menchu asks Julia if she exchanged bodily fluids with Alvarao. Ha ha. They arrive at the castle. Max opens the door. Surprise. He says something about "the old bastard"--apparently he's married to the niece of the owner of the painting.
Don Manuel, the owner, is in a wheelchair and has some breathing thingie. Oxygen mask? Anyway, apparently he's dying. Lola, his niece, and Max, her husband, want to sell the painting to pay off various debts (probably incurred by Manuel's illness). Manuel is going along with it, but he loves the painting. It's of his ancestors, and has been passed from generation to generation. Shots of Max standing by the empty wall where the painting once hung underline who's really wanting the money here. Manuel confirms what Julia had learned about the Duke and Duchess of Ostenburg, and says the knight is Roger D'Arras, who was the French ambassador after Ostenburg. He gives Julia permission to do tests to see whether the artist covered up the mysterious inscription or whether it was covered up later, and then corrects their on-the-fly translation of it, saying it means "Who killed the knight?" and is therefore not about the chess game, but about Roger D'Arras.
Alvaro has found Roger's name, backing up what Julia learned from Manuel. Alvaro tells Julia that Roger and the Duchess Beatrix were lovers. He kisses Julia, she remembers what she loved about him, she asks him can't they keep it meaningless, he says he loves her. She sneezes in his face twice and leaves. By the way, Alvaro is not very hot. He hair is semi-balding Blair Sandburg, and the stubble is not his friend. The ugly ones are doomed.
Cesar thinks it's an open-and-shut case--the jealous husband killed his wife's lover. But why, asks Julia, would the duke then commission a painting about it? Cesar takes Julia to see some chess master about the chess game in the painting, because she thinks that will tell who killed Roger D'Arras. They arrive in time to see the chess master lose to some gypsy blondboy punk with earphones on, so they hire him instead. Domenec, the blondboy, agrees to play the chess game backwards to figure out what piece took the white knight. He gets some ridiculous sum of money out of Menchu for this. Menchu quite likes the looks of him. So does Cesar. They both insist the other's not Domenec's type. Exit Domenec.
The telephone rings but Julia doesn't want to answer it, and they let the machine get it. It's Alvaro. He wants a second chance with Julia. Cesar is appalled--Julia promised him she was not getting involved with Alvaro again! That Alvaro sleeps with hundred of "nymphets"! Think of the possibility of disease, if nothing else! Menchu makes some insinuating remark that forces Cesar to confess that he made Alvaro break up with Julia. Julia was a student in Alvaro's classes, and Cesar reminded Alvaro that the university frowned on that sort of thing, and that he knew the dean. Damn you, Cesar! Who are you to stand in the way of true, if ugly, love? Even heterosexual love!?
Julia goes to see Alvaro. His door is open, but he doesn't resond to her calls. The shower is on. Considering what we just heard, it's only natural to think Julia's about to surprise him with some nymphet, right? Only, gasp, he's dead! And alone! The police think he just slipped in the shower, but Julia suspects he was murdered. Alvaro was quite the slut. He had a photo album of artsy black and white photos of his numerous girlfriends, and also a collection of little figurines exposing their bums.
Julia accuses Cesar of killing Alvaro, but Cesar has an alibi, a hot young Arabic guy named Rashid. "I was only being naughty," says Cesar, and Julia cries on his lap and says she'll always love him.
Julia goes home and starts getting naked, with the pretty breasts and all, when the doorbell buzzes. She puts on a robe and goes to open the door. It's Domenec. He's got the answer. The black queen took the white knight. Julia is reluctant to believe black Beatrix offed Roger--after all, what about true love? But Beatrix won, polically--Ostenburg joined Burgundy. Julia sneezes in Domenec's face as he leaves. But he's not quite gone. He found an envelope on her doorstep. It contains a chess piece--a white knight.
Julia wakes up the next morning in her robe, still clutching the white knight. She has been dreaming that the knight in the painting was poor Alvaro. The door is buzzing again. It's Max, carrying Don Manuel in his arms! Julia giggles. Max wants to know what she's laughing at. She lets them in--Lola, too. Don Manuel wanted to see the painting again. (Max swears to kill Manuel if he decided not to sell the painting. This is a murder mystery! You shouldn't say things like that, Max! Lola tells Max not to be stupid, and Manuel says Max can't help it.) Also, he found a letter the Duke wrote to the painter, saying he knows SHE did it, but cannot denounce her, and wants the painter to implicate her. Apparently it really was the Duchess Beatrix who killed Roger D'Arras!
Don Manuel sees a picture of child!Julia and younger!Cesar, and recognizes Cesar as his brother. Manuel assures Lola that Cesar is not in the will. They've been estranged for forty years. Julia is shocked! So is Manuel! He goes into some kind of fit, and Lola has to give him pills. She makes some ominous remark about how he may survive--this time.
Julia goes to ask Cesar about it. Apparently Manuel got him kicked out of the family by telling their parents he was fucking the chauffeur. Not sure whether he was disowned for gaiety or sleeping below his station. He claims to have never looked back. The old fraud.
Later, Julia, Menchu, and Cesar are all at a club. Menchu is saying how she thinks she should get a bigger cut of the painting's price when it goes to auction, since she found it. Max storms in, pushing through the crowd (Cesar says something about "rough trade," to which Menchu replies, "He's mine!") and announces Manuel got nostalgic and decided not to sell. Menchu is aghast. Max and Menchu both say they're fucking ruined. Max blames Julia. He gets all in her face about it, and Cesar grabs his balls. Max gasps and tries to back off, but Cesar says, "Oh, I'm quite enjoying this. I don't know if I CAN let go!" Finally, he does release Max, telling Menchu she can have him. Max collapses on the floor, with Menchu by his side. The club applauds.
Julia receives another chess piece on her doorstep. She goes to find Domenec and ask him if he's leaving them--he says no, they're antique ivory, far too expensive for the likes of him. She asks him about the next moves of the chess game. The next important bit is black queen takes white castle. (Yes, they say castle, not rook. Also, they called the knight a horse at the beginning. Scandalous.) Julia reveals that the latest chess piece was a white castle. Cut to Manuel's castle, where he is--surprise--dead.
Unless there's ghosts involved, I'm thinking that whoever is behind this is probably a serial killer. I mean, why else bother with the little chess piece warnings?
Lola grabs Julia by the shoulders and says she thinks Max did it! She probably wants Julia to testify in court. After all, Julia heard Max threaten the old bastard. Lola reports that the police think Max did it, too, and have arrested him. Also at Manuel's funeral at the castle is Montegrifo. Remember him? No? He owns the auction house Menchu works for. He made a new deal with Lola regarding the sale of the painting. Now Menchu gets no cut at all. Julia declares she won't finish the restoration, out of loyalty to Menchu.
At the police station, where Menchu is waiting for Max, she tells Julia to go ahead and finish and not destroy her career. Julia is confused, because Menchu was so upset about the money before. Menchu says her philosophy is, "If you're going to get fucked, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She also tells Julia that Lola is the black queen. Max is released for lack of evidence. He kisses Menchu, but then leaves with Lola. The little whore. The police officer tells Julia Alvaro's death was ruled accidental, and Manuel died of his disease--there's no murder.
The little whore comes snooping around Julia's place the next day. She catches him, and he bounds in, swinging off the rafters and announcing he wanted to see his painting. She's not happy with him, but he refuses to leave. He lounges against a doorjamb, with his arms above his head so his short little shirt lifts up and reveals his navel. He feels himself up and asks what Julia thinks of him. Julia is even more annoyed. Max asks, didn't Menchu tell her about his sexual prowess? Julia replies that Menchu said he had a little tiny dick. Well, after he walked out on her at the police station, I wouldn't be surpised if she had said so. Max pins Julia to a wall-mirror with his crotch as if to let her feel otherwise. This is the most unsubtle attempt at seduction I've ever seen, and Julia's not going for it. Although she does sneeze. Max licks her mucus off his face and says he would have thought being raised by a pervert (Cesar is automatically a pervert because he's gay--sigh) would have taught her the pleasures of the flesh. She slaps him and he grabs her wrists and shoves a thigh between her legs. I think the whore has the makings of a rapist. This scene is actually fairly disturbing. He kisses her and she bites his lip. He gets extremely pissed at her for that--"Look what you did to my face!" Of course he'd be concerned about his face. It's his living. Like I said, he's a whore. He's really only married to Lola for the money. Max tries to punch Julia, but she ducks, and he puts his fist through the mirror. Julia runs out of the apartment, with Max on her heels.
Domenec is coming up the stairs. He gets out a knife to protect Julia from Max, whom he calls "Mr. Muscles." Julia takes the knife from him and brandishes it at Max herself until he leaves, swearing vengeance.
Domenec came by because he's worried about Julia. Apparently the next logical move in the chess painting is that the black queen takes the white queen. Both Domenec and Cesar (who has just come from a doctor's appointment) agree that Julia must be the white queen. Domenec and Cesar quite hit it off. I don't know why Cesar thinks the street hustler is a better match for Julia than the late Professor Alvaro, except that Alvaro was ugly and Domenec has, as Cesar has noted, a nice bum. That must be it. The pretty will win over the ugly.
Cesar has a little collapse. Apparently he's in poor health. Domenec and Julia take him back to his place, where he presses Julia to take a gun for protection. She reluctantly accepts it. She flirts with Domenec all the way home. She finds another chess piece on her doorstep--guess which one. Forewarned, she goes through her apartment with the gun, but finds no one. Just when she's starting to relax, the phone rings, making her jump again.
It's Menchu. Menchu is having a fight with Max at a club, and needs Julia to pick her up. When Julia arrives, Menchu is accusing Max of sleeping with Julia and/or Lola. "A man can't sleep with his own wife?" Max asks, spreading his arms. The club is appreciative of the spectacle. Menchu says Max is pussy-whipped. He hurls various epithets at her, while she continues to chant, "Pussy-whipped! Pussy-whipped!" Julia drags her away.
After Julia has put Menchu to bed, she notices Domenec on the street looking up at her window. She goes down and startles him. More flirting. They end up sleeping together on the couch. Used kleenex litter the floor. You think I'm making this up? A-choo, a-choo, a-choo. Ick. Least sexy sexual response ever. But we do get to see Julia's breasts again, and Domenec's arse.
Julia and Domenec go out for breakfast. He brings her celery, since she's been constantly walking around eating random vegetables (which Domenec has been constantly stealing bites of, by the way--if you care about their mating rituals. He also finished off her glass of wine earlier. It must be because he's a homeless bum). She was eying a pastry, and gasps, "You think I'm fat!" The unbecoming fat-paranoia strikes again. She runs off. He buys her the eclair and ambushes her with it, then kisses her sticky mouth. They somehow make it back to her apartment. He's still licking cream off her chin. They bump into the table and discover two gas cans on it.
Something's wrong. The painting's gone. They discover Menchu dead in the bathroom. She was pretty obviously murdered, unlike the other two. For one thing, she has written on her chest in blood, "QtP" which apparently means Queen takes Pawn. Domenec demonstrates on the chess board. It's the "wrong" move, he says--he's still insisting the black queen should have taken the white queen. The policeman says the chess game makes his head hurt, but he'll happily take Max's fight with Menchu for a motive, especially since a neighbor saw Max come by while Julia and Domenec were out for breakfast. Cesar says it can't be Max, because he's too much of a Neanderthal to understand the chess game. I still say whoever's behind this is a fucking serial killer to be offing people according to the chess game.
Max is arrested at the airport trying to flee, but won't speak to the police until he sees Julia. Julia reluctantly agrees to speak with him. "Oh, finally a friendly face!" says Max, who, by the way, started off with heavily slicked hair which has been steadily coming loose throughout the movie and is now in curls down around around his ears. Julia is shocked by his nerve at thinking her friendly, and frankly, so am I. He nearly raped her! He's a stupid whore, that one. He swears he didn't do it, that Menchu was already dead when he got there. He and Menchu were going to steal the painting and torch Julia's place--thus the gas cans. Julia doesn't believe Menchu would do that to her. Max reminds her of the money--he says Menchu had already spent the money before she'd ever been paid. She really was screwed. She needed that painting. Max insists he didn't kill Menchu, that he loved her. "Oh, cut the bullshit," says Julia. "Well, I liked her!" Max amends. "A lot!"
They get into a tussle, and the policeman escorts Julia away. Max's last words are, "I didn't do it!" He has a lot of shouting and flaring of nostrils. Julia realizes she believes him. She thinks Lola did it. She claims she saw Lola's car by the apartment, but she didn't see the license plate, or Lola herself, so the policeman laughs her off.
Julia asks Domenec what the next move in the chess game is. White queen checks. So they go investigating the castle, now inhabited by the bereaved Lola. Lola hears them and investigates with a gun. She thinks it's Max sneaking around. Just when Julia and Domenec see her through a window with the lost painting, a mysterious someone strangles Lola with a black cord! They run inside to see who it is. Oh, and if Lola's dead. Which she is. The black queen was a red herring!
It turns out to be--Cesar! The old queen with the black heart, he calls himself. Can I say how annoyed I am that it turned out to be the gay guy? He says he did it all for Julia. Well, we knew he didn't like Alvaro, and that there was bad blood between him and Manuel. He says Menchu was a fortuitous mistake. Julia demands to know who he's going to kill next, she herself? Cesar says no, he's going to suicide. Julia begs him not to, even though she hates him now. Cesar tries to get Julia to shoot him. She doesn't want to. Cesar shoots Domenec in the arm and Julia reacts, shooting Cesar in the chest. He falls off the stairs and lands on a white and black tiled floor, like a chess board.
The policeman finally figures it all out. He tells Julia Cesar really did do it all for her: with Lola dead, Manuel's riches went to Cesar, and now they go to Julia. Also, Cesar was dying. He wanted to make sure Julia would be provided for when he was gone, or something. Domenec is excited that Julia's rich. Julia hits him on his injured arm, saying how horrible that is. Ah, slapstick. The policeman says that no one's rich, Julia also inherited the family debts. Remember the debts? The reason Manuel and Lola and Max were going to sell off the painting in the first place? "Easy come, easy go," Domenec says philosophically, kissing Julia's shoulder.
And so they sell the painting. Everyone still living is at the auction--the chess grandmaster Domenec whupped, Max, the policeman, et cetera. Fade to credits over the bidding getting obscenely high.
Conclusions:
Cesar was a fucking nut. I still think he was a serial killer, despite any other motives he may have had. Also, I'm still annoyed that they made the gay guy the villain. I liked him.
Max was an asshole. Pretty, but an asshole. I don't think I'll be trying the Highlander cross with this movie, because I can't see Methos being that near to rape in 1993. Oh, also, his lip didn't heal. Max is demonstrably not immortal, ergo, not Methos.
I don't know if they were going with quirky for Julia or what, but good grief. The sneezing and the fat fixation? Ick. I am won over by her breasts, though. They have such lovely large areolas.
Overall, I'd watch it again. It's amusing in bits.
Spoiler summary, with loving attention to Peter Wingfield's role:
So this painting Julia's restoring shows two guys playing chess, with a lady in the background. She's had some sort of scan done on the painting--infrared, I think she said--and it shows that there's an inscription that was painted over, in the bottom corner of the painting. Terribly excited, Julia takes the infrared scan to her boss and friend, Menchu, an older woman in a leopard print dress--how very Mrs. Robinson.
Menchu is getting a blowjob from Peter Wingfield's character, Max, when Julia arrives. We see him rise from his knees and reach into his pants to adjust himself. Menchu regretfully dismisses him, and he walks past Julia licking his lips--which is when we are first introduced to Julia's delightful allergy to sexual situations.
Yes. The girl sneezes whenever she's aroused, romanced, or just plain hit on. Did I say delightful? I meant annoying. It's like Daniel Jackson's allergy to travel. Note to self: never give hero or heroine an endearing sneeze. It's not endearing.
Menchu and Julia work out that the inscription, which is in Latin, says "Who took the knight?", presumably in reference to the chess game the two men in the painting are playing. Montegrifo, the owner of the auction house for whom Menchu works, comes in. They coquettishly refuse to tell him about the mystery they've discovered. They leave Menchu's office in time to see Max get slapped by some woman, who calls him a slut. Menchu sighs and says it's Max's wife. But no matter! Menchu suggests that Julia go see someone named Alvaro about the painting, though Julia is reluctant, since she has some history with him. Menchu thinks Julia needs to get laid.
At some point in here, we're introduced to Cesar. He's Julia's gay old adoptive dad. He brings her some kind of pastry and she says he shouldn't have, because she thinks she's fat. Julia has a very boyish figure, as well as a very boyish haircut. She's not fucking fat. Actually, her figure isn't half-bad naked. She has nice breasts. Yet for some reason, she dresses in such a way that you can hardly tell she has breasts at all. Probably someone told her those dresses were slimming.
Julia goes to see Alvaro. She sees the last few minutes of a lecture in which he talks about how in some painting, Venus is naked except for her hat, and that if she were completely naked, all erotic tension would be lost. Hm, interesting. In the two instances in which we see Julia nearly naked, she retains her panties in one shot and a towel in the other. Ah, but I think that's to keep it to an R-rating, not for erotic tension.
Alvaro puts names to two of the people in the painting, based on the little labels conveniently placed over their heads. One of the guys is Duke Ferdinand of Ostenburg, a little principality that was being fought over by France and Burgandy 500 years ago. The woman is the Duchess, who happens to be from Burgandy. The other man is apparently a knight, although he's not named, so they're not sure who he is in relation to the other two. However, what tips them off that he's a knight is that the adjectives used to describe him are also often used to describe Lancelot. It should therefore be no surprise that it later turns out that the fair knight was diddling the Duchess. Alvaro puts the moves on Julia; she protests that she wants the relationship professional and sneezes, and leaves.
On the drive out the the castle of the owner of the painting, Menchu asks Julia if she exchanged bodily fluids with Alvarao. Ha ha. They arrive at the castle. Max opens the door. Surprise. He says something about "the old bastard"--apparently he's married to the niece of the owner of the painting.
Don Manuel, the owner, is in a wheelchair and has some breathing thingie. Oxygen mask? Anyway, apparently he's dying. Lola, his niece, and Max, her husband, want to sell the painting to pay off various debts (probably incurred by Manuel's illness). Manuel is going along with it, but he loves the painting. It's of his ancestors, and has been passed from generation to generation. Shots of Max standing by the empty wall where the painting once hung underline who's really wanting the money here. Manuel confirms what Julia had learned about the Duke and Duchess of Ostenburg, and says the knight is Roger D'Arras, who was the French ambassador after Ostenburg. He gives Julia permission to do tests to see whether the artist covered up the mysterious inscription or whether it was covered up later, and then corrects their on-the-fly translation of it, saying it means "Who killed the knight?" and is therefore not about the chess game, but about Roger D'Arras.
Alvaro has found Roger's name, backing up what Julia learned from Manuel. Alvaro tells Julia that Roger and the Duchess Beatrix were lovers. He kisses Julia, she remembers what she loved about him, she asks him can't they keep it meaningless, he says he loves her. She sneezes in his face twice and leaves. By the way, Alvaro is not very hot. He hair is semi-balding Blair Sandburg, and the stubble is not his friend. The ugly ones are doomed.
Cesar thinks it's an open-and-shut case--the jealous husband killed his wife's lover. But why, asks Julia, would the duke then commission a painting about it? Cesar takes Julia to see some chess master about the chess game in the painting, because she thinks that will tell who killed Roger D'Arras. They arrive in time to see the chess master lose to some gypsy blondboy punk with earphones on, so they hire him instead. Domenec, the blondboy, agrees to play the chess game backwards to figure out what piece took the white knight. He gets some ridiculous sum of money out of Menchu for this. Menchu quite likes the looks of him. So does Cesar. They both insist the other's not Domenec's type. Exit Domenec.
The telephone rings but Julia doesn't want to answer it, and they let the machine get it. It's Alvaro. He wants a second chance with Julia. Cesar is appalled--Julia promised him she was not getting involved with Alvaro again! That Alvaro sleeps with hundred of "nymphets"! Think of the possibility of disease, if nothing else! Menchu makes some insinuating remark that forces Cesar to confess that he made Alvaro break up with Julia. Julia was a student in Alvaro's classes, and Cesar reminded Alvaro that the university frowned on that sort of thing, and that he knew the dean. Damn you, Cesar! Who are you to stand in the way of true, if ugly, love? Even heterosexual love!?
Julia goes to see Alvaro. His door is open, but he doesn't resond to her calls. The shower is on. Considering what we just heard, it's only natural to think Julia's about to surprise him with some nymphet, right? Only, gasp, he's dead! And alone! The police think he just slipped in the shower, but Julia suspects he was murdered. Alvaro was quite the slut. He had a photo album of artsy black and white photos of his numerous girlfriends, and also a collection of little figurines exposing their bums.
Julia accuses Cesar of killing Alvaro, but Cesar has an alibi, a hot young Arabic guy named Rashid. "I was only being naughty," says Cesar, and Julia cries on his lap and says she'll always love him.
Julia goes home and starts getting naked, with the pretty breasts and all, when the doorbell buzzes. She puts on a robe and goes to open the door. It's Domenec. He's got the answer. The black queen took the white knight. Julia is reluctant to believe black Beatrix offed Roger--after all, what about true love? But Beatrix won, polically--Ostenburg joined Burgundy. Julia sneezes in Domenec's face as he leaves. But he's not quite gone. He found an envelope on her doorstep. It contains a chess piece--a white knight.
Julia wakes up the next morning in her robe, still clutching the white knight. She has been dreaming that the knight in the painting was poor Alvaro. The door is buzzing again. It's Max, carrying Don Manuel in his arms! Julia giggles. Max wants to know what she's laughing at. She lets them in--Lola, too. Don Manuel wanted to see the painting again. (Max swears to kill Manuel if he decided not to sell the painting. This is a murder mystery! You shouldn't say things like that, Max! Lola tells Max not to be stupid, and Manuel says Max can't help it.) Also, he found a letter the Duke wrote to the painter, saying he knows SHE did it, but cannot denounce her, and wants the painter to implicate her. Apparently it really was the Duchess Beatrix who killed Roger D'Arras!
Don Manuel sees a picture of child!Julia and younger!Cesar, and recognizes Cesar as his brother. Manuel assures Lola that Cesar is not in the will. They've been estranged for forty years. Julia is shocked! So is Manuel! He goes into some kind of fit, and Lola has to give him pills. She makes some ominous remark about how he may survive--this time.
Julia goes to ask Cesar about it. Apparently Manuel got him kicked out of the family by telling their parents he was fucking the chauffeur. Not sure whether he was disowned for gaiety or sleeping below his station. He claims to have never looked back. The old fraud.
Later, Julia, Menchu, and Cesar are all at a club. Menchu is saying how she thinks she should get a bigger cut of the painting's price when it goes to auction, since she found it. Max storms in, pushing through the crowd (Cesar says something about "rough trade," to which Menchu replies, "He's mine!") and announces Manuel got nostalgic and decided not to sell. Menchu is aghast. Max and Menchu both say they're fucking ruined. Max blames Julia. He gets all in her face about it, and Cesar grabs his balls. Max gasps and tries to back off, but Cesar says, "Oh, I'm quite enjoying this. I don't know if I CAN let go!" Finally, he does release Max, telling Menchu she can have him. Max collapses on the floor, with Menchu by his side. The club applauds.
Julia receives another chess piece on her doorstep. She goes to find Domenec and ask him if he's leaving them--he says no, they're antique ivory, far too expensive for the likes of him. She asks him about the next moves of the chess game. The next important bit is black queen takes white castle. (Yes, they say castle, not rook. Also, they called the knight a horse at the beginning. Scandalous.) Julia reveals that the latest chess piece was a white castle. Cut to Manuel's castle, where he is--surprise--dead.
Unless there's ghosts involved, I'm thinking that whoever is behind this is probably a serial killer. I mean, why else bother with the little chess piece warnings?
Lola grabs Julia by the shoulders and says she thinks Max did it! She probably wants Julia to testify in court. After all, Julia heard Max threaten the old bastard. Lola reports that the police think Max did it, too, and have arrested him. Also at Manuel's funeral at the castle is Montegrifo. Remember him? No? He owns the auction house Menchu works for. He made a new deal with Lola regarding the sale of the painting. Now Menchu gets no cut at all. Julia declares she won't finish the restoration, out of loyalty to Menchu.
At the police station, where Menchu is waiting for Max, she tells Julia to go ahead and finish and not destroy her career. Julia is confused, because Menchu was so upset about the money before. Menchu says her philosophy is, "If you're going to get fucked, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She also tells Julia that Lola is the black queen. Max is released for lack of evidence. He kisses Menchu, but then leaves with Lola. The little whore. The police officer tells Julia Alvaro's death was ruled accidental, and Manuel died of his disease--there's no murder.
The little whore comes snooping around Julia's place the next day. She catches him, and he bounds in, swinging off the rafters and announcing he wanted to see his painting. She's not happy with him, but he refuses to leave. He lounges against a doorjamb, with his arms above his head so his short little shirt lifts up and reveals his navel. He feels himself up and asks what Julia thinks of him. Julia is even more annoyed. Max asks, didn't Menchu tell her about his sexual prowess? Julia replies that Menchu said he had a little tiny dick. Well, after he walked out on her at the police station, I wouldn't be surpised if she had said so. Max pins Julia to a wall-mirror with his crotch as if to let her feel otherwise. This is the most unsubtle attempt at seduction I've ever seen, and Julia's not going for it. Although she does sneeze. Max licks her mucus off his face and says he would have thought being raised by a pervert (Cesar is automatically a pervert because he's gay--sigh) would have taught her the pleasures of the flesh. She slaps him and he grabs her wrists and shoves a thigh between her legs. I think the whore has the makings of a rapist. This scene is actually fairly disturbing. He kisses her and she bites his lip. He gets extremely pissed at her for that--"Look what you did to my face!" Of course he'd be concerned about his face. It's his living. Like I said, he's a whore. He's really only married to Lola for the money. Max tries to punch Julia, but she ducks, and he puts his fist through the mirror. Julia runs out of the apartment, with Max on her heels.
Domenec is coming up the stairs. He gets out a knife to protect Julia from Max, whom he calls "Mr. Muscles." Julia takes the knife from him and brandishes it at Max herself until he leaves, swearing vengeance.
Domenec came by because he's worried about Julia. Apparently the next logical move in the chess painting is that the black queen takes the white queen. Both Domenec and Cesar (who has just come from a doctor's appointment) agree that Julia must be the white queen. Domenec and Cesar quite hit it off. I don't know why Cesar thinks the street hustler is a better match for Julia than the late Professor Alvaro, except that Alvaro was ugly and Domenec has, as Cesar has noted, a nice bum. That must be it. The pretty will win over the ugly.
Cesar has a little collapse. Apparently he's in poor health. Domenec and Julia take him back to his place, where he presses Julia to take a gun for protection. She reluctantly accepts it. She flirts with Domenec all the way home. She finds another chess piece on her doorstep--guess which one. Forewarned, she goes through her apartment with the gun, but finds no one. Just when she's starting to relax, the phone rings, making her jump again.
It's Menchu. Menchu is having a fight with Max at a club, and needs Julia to pick her up. When Julia arrives, Menchu is accusing Max of sleeping with Julia and/or Lola. "A man can't sleep with his own wife?" Max asks, spreading his arms. The club is appreciative of the spectacle. Menchu says Max is pussy-whipped. He hurls various epithets at her, while she continues to chant, "Pussy-whipped! Pussy-whipped!" Julia drags her away.
After Julia has put Menchu to bed, she notices Domenec on the street looking up at her window. She goes down and startles him. More flirting. They end up sleeping together on the couch. Used kleenex litter the floor. You think I'm making this up? A-choo, a-choo, a-choo. Ick. Least sexy sexual response ever. But we do get to see Julia's breasts again, and Domenec's arse.
Julia and Domenec go out for breakfast. He brings her celery, since she's been constantly walking around eating random vegetables (which Domenec has been constantly stealing bites of, by the way--if you care about their mating rituals. He also finished off her glass of wine earlier. It must be because he's a homeless bum). She was eying a pastry, and gasps, "You think I'm fat!" The unbecoming fat-paranoia strikes again. She runs off. He buys her the eclair and ambushes her with it, then kisses her sticky mouth. They somehow make it back to her apartment. He's still licking cream off her chin. They bump into the table and discover two gas cans on it.
Something's wrong. The painting's gone. They discover Menchu dead in the bathroom. She was pretty obviously murdered, unlike the other two. For one thing, she has written on her chest in blood, "QtP" which apparently means Queen takes Pawn. Domenec demonstrates on the chess board. It's the "wrong" move, he says--he's still insisting the black queen should have taken the white queen. The policeman says the chess game makes his head hurt, but he'll happily take Max's fight with Menchu for a motive, especially since a neighbor saw Max come by while Julia and Domenec were out for breakfast. Cesar says it can't be Max, because he's too much of a Neanderthal to understand the chess game. I still say whoever's behind this is a fucking serial killer to be offing people according to the chess game.
Max is arrested at the airport trying to flee, but won't speak to the police until he sees Julia. Julia reluctantly agrees to speak with him. "Oh, finally a friendly face!" says Max, who, by the way, started off with heavily slicked hair which has been steadily coming loose throughout the movie and is now in curls down around around his ears. Julia is shocked by his nerve at thinking her friendly, and frankly, so am I. He nearly raped her! He's a stupid whore, that one. He swears he didn't do it, that Menchu was already dead when he got there. He and Menchu were going to steal the painting and torch Julia's place--thus the gas cans. Julia doesn't believe Menchu would do that to her. Max reminds her of the money--he says Menchu had already spent the money before she'd ever been paid. She really was screwed. She needed that painting. Max insists he didn't kill Menchu, that he loved her. "Oh, cut the bullshit," says Julia. "Well, I liked her!" Max amends. "A lot!"
They get into a tussle, and the policeman escorts Julia away. Max's last words are, "I didn't do it!" He has a lot of shouting and flaring of nostrils. Julia realizes she believes him. She thinks Lola did it. She claims she saw Lola's car by the apartment, but she didn't see the license plate, or Lola herself, so the policeman laughs her off.
Julia asks Domenec what the next move in the chess game is. White queen checks. So they go investigating the castle, now inhabited by the bereaved Lola. Lola hears them and investigates with a gun. She thinks it's Max sneaking around. Just when Julia and Domenec see her through a window with the lost painting, a mysterious someone strangles Lola with a black cord! They run inside to see who it is. Oh, and if Lola's dead. Which she is. The black queen was a red herring!
It turns out to be--Cesar! The old queen with the black heart, he calls himself. Can I say how annoyed I am that it turned out to be the gay guy? He says he did it all for Julia. Well, we knew he didn't like Alvaro, and that there was bad blood between him and Manuel. He says Menchu was a fortuitous mistake. Julia demands to know who he's going to kill next, she herself? Cesar says no, he's going to suicide. Julia begs him not to, even though she hates him now. Cesar tries to get Julia to shoot him. She doesn't want to. Cesar shoots Domenec in the arm and Julia reacts, shooting Cesar in the chest. He falls off the stairs and lands on a white and black tiled floor, like a chess board.
The policeman finally figures it all out. He tells Julia Cesar really did do it all for her: with Lola dead, Manuel's riches went to Cesar, and now they go to Julia. Also, Cesar was dying. He wanted to make sure Julia would be provided for when he was gone, or something. Domenec is excited that Julia's rich. Julia hits him on his injured arm, saying how horrible that is. Ah, slapstick. The policeman says that no one's rich, Julia also inherited the family debts. Remember the debts? The reason Manuel and Lola and Max were going to sell off the painting in the first place? "Easy come, easy go," Domenec says philosophically, kissing Julia's shoulder.
And so they sell the painting. Everyone still living is at the auction--the chess grandmaster Domenec whupped, Max, the policeman, et cetera. Fade to credits over the bidding getting obscenely high.
Conclusions:
Cesar was a fucking nut. I still think he was a serial killer, despite any other motives he may have had. Also, I'm still annoyed that they made the gay guy the villain. I liked him.
Max was an asshole. Pretty, but an asshole. I don't think I'll be trying the Highlander cross with this movie, because I can't see Methos being that near to rape in 1993. Oh, also, his lip didn't heal. Max is demonstrably not immortal, ergo, not Methos.
I don't know if they were going with quirky for Julia or what, but good grief. The sneezing and the fat fixation? Ick. I am won over by her breasts, though. They have such lovely large areolas.
Overall, I'd watch it again. It's amusing in bits.
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