Patience is Rewarded

Rating: 9/10 (2 May 2006)

This film is not boring. Not in the least. What is routine, what is everyday, does admittedly consume the first, oh, 45 minutes and requires patience from the audience. But after that, and one cannot really mind all that much as the cast is absolutely gorgeous, the suspense piles and piles until it is quite unbearable. One of the most satisfying suspense films ever.
What Meyers does playing Wilton, the protagonist and tennis pro, is phenomenal. His smoky eyes speak volumes and his mouth is absolutely expressive. From early in the movie, Dostoyevskian themes are suggested, and Wilton's behavior and psychology slowly shift into a complexity worthy of one of the Russian author's own heroes. Indeed, instead of confusing the pace and content of the movie, Woody Allen's allusions to books like Crime and Punishment is woven integrally, with care, into the film.
The movie itself plays, almost, as a tennis game. Characters act, and the audience feels batted back and forth as we take short leaps in time and discovering events directly as well as indirectly. If there is a net the audience passes over, it's the films score. Opera music provides a continuous thread and boundary to anchor the story. There is hardly a superfluous line in the movie, much less any criminally unnecessary scenes. Speaking of scenes, I love how classically the movie is filmed. Often times, two characters are framed very properly without the camera cutting for whole minutes at a time. While camera shots become more complicated and disjointed in popular cinema, here, Allen's simplicity was a treat. Beautifully filmed.
Undeniably, Scarlett Johanson is a beauty, and is on her way to greatness, although, do not expect it here. At times, her performance is a little reserved, but her subtlty is reamrkable. One laugh in particular had me distracted even scenes later.
As I said, patience is rewarded. The plot is tight and thick, though slow-going at first. One thing is certain, if you commit to it, you'll never imagine, or be disappointed, where this movie will go.