OK but not brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2006)

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". Unless of course we get lucky, and the crime gets blamed on someone else.
I liked this movie if only because the baddie DIDN'T get his come-uppance, and we weren't required to sit through the requisite, predictable, Hollywood moralistic ending. My spouse said Match Point made him feel uncomfortable but couldn't quite put his finger on why. Maybe the lack of justice for the protagonist, maybe the squirm inducing look at the unpleasant and exclusive face of upper class England (and I'm saying that as Brit born and bred in London who spent the 3 worst years of her life at a posh English boarding school alongside many of these sort of people.) Actually the fact that the movie is set in London is mostly irrelevant; it could have been the upper classes of any nation  I suspect they all behave in much the same way. The movie explores themes of infidelity, hypocrisy, patronage and deception, and makes much of the rather uncomfortable idea that our fate in life is decided by sheer luck as much as anything, despite the fact that we all like to fool ourselves that we are really in control of our destiny.
Poor boy made good Chris, takes a job as a tennis coach at an exclusive club and finds himself drawn into the world of the landed rich. Marrying into a monied family, he gets accustomed to their style of living and is happy to accept the patronage of his father in law, rising in the family business, spending weekends at the country house, and generally worming his way into a world hitherto barred to him. Fine, except that he lusts after a woman other than his nice but naïve wife, and he's living a complete lie. Which will win out? An ignominious life with lusciously sexy but poor, screwed up and rather humourless Nola (gorgeous Scarlett Johansson who gets better in every movie she does), or the rich pickings of life with sweet but dull wifey Chloe, and the comfortable shelter and patronage of her family? The family admire Chris for having "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" and made something of himself from humble beginnings, but the truth is of course, that Chris is utterly amoral and totally weak, and when forced to make a choice, he opts to commit a terrible crime rather than give up his pleasant lifestyle.
The crime he commits is very far from perfect, in fact it's really amateur and botched, but by sheer good luck, he gets away with it. We hate to think that could happen, but in real life, maybe it does? I thought the performances reasonably good, but the casting choices rather strange. To be honest, I never could quite understand why either Chloe or Nola had the hots for Chris, who seemed to me to be rather too self absorbed and moody to attract a girl like Chloe, even before the great deception began, although he was certainly pretty to look at. Penelope Wilton seemed altogether too middle class to fit convincingly into the upper class lifestyle - although that may be my problem not hers, as I kept thinking of her performance in Shaun of the Dead - and Brian Cox (who is a wonderful actor) seemed a bit out of place as a dynamic businessman, looking more like a slightly crumpled engineer. Also not entirely convincing, Chris's meteoric rise to the top in the family firm. Britain is not quite the class riddled place it used to be; businesses there are run for the bottom line, just like they are anywhere else. You don't get to be a hotshot purely by connection to the boss these days, you actually have to be good at what you do and efficient, and we saw little evidence of that in Chris.
But altogether it was gripping and quite entertaining, and I wanted to see how Chris's dilemma was resolved. Certainly not a wasted night out.