Started slowly but by the end I was riveted

Rating: 7/10 (31 May 2006)

After half an hour of this film I felt as if I was watching one of those awful one off Sunday evening dramas which seem to have been made only with the middle class housewife in mind. There were cut glass English accents, shots of tennis and the opera, meaningful looks across dinner tables and a rather obvious love triangle involving Scarlet Johannsen. But I have to admit that the longer this film progressed the more intriguing it became until by the end I was quite unashamedly shouting advice at the screen. Match Point was refreshingly unpredictable and also rather refreshingly had no particularly likable characters thereby avoiding moral judgements. As others have said this is far from your typical Woody Allen film - and I am normally a big fan. A slight disappointment for me in Match Point was that you can normally rely on Allen to produce scintillating dialogue yet the conversations appeared stilted and slightly humourless. I also felt that some of the details - such as Chris being a supposedly working class boy from Ireland yet with a posh English accent and a penchant for Dostoevsky were a little far-fetched. Overall though Match Point is definitely worth a look.