Alexander Alekhin was really the greatest chess player of his time, but he NEVER wanted to return to Russia from where he escaped in the beginning of 1920th. Alexander Kotov simply "invented" this fact (btw, he was a KGB officer). If you remove this "concept" from the movie it will become a pretty good one, but not a masterpiece for sure. Perhaps, Kotov was forced to do this sort of "inventions" since in Soviet time an immigrant could not be a national hero by definition, so he made a story saying that first, he had to leave Russia to prepare for the World Championship match with Capablanca and then he missed all the opportunities to return, but he always dreamed about it.