London no match for New York

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2005)

It's a little odd that for the time being at least Woody Allen has transferred his affection from New York to my home town, London. Following Match Point, he's well into his second London film (Scoop), and a third is said to be on the stocks. The point is, he may love London, but it's not clear that London or the UK generally loves him. Yes, they adore the classics, like Annie Hall and Manhatten; but they were never keen on his "Bergman period" efforts such as Interiors; and his latest offerings have generally been panned - I had to see and enjoy the bad taste of Hollywood Ending in Paris, as to date (late 2005) it's not been released in the UK.
All the signs are that Match Point will be well received when it opens here early in 2006; but personally I wasn't too sure. (Again, I saw it in the French capital, which gets many English-language films before London, and whose cinema scene makes ours look provincial.) It seemed to me that Allen may have been mildly infected by whatever bug caused Robert Altman to make Gosford Park. His film is so, so English, with almost all the characters talking in posh accents, and living posh life-styles (apart from the stereotypically, cardboard police detectives); and if there was even one of Allens trade-mark wisecracks, I missed it.
Sure, much of the milieu has to be high class, since a main theme of the film is how far a poorer (though not that poor) chap will go to climb the social ladder; but Allen might have shown a little of London's seamier and steamier side, to complement the series of shots of pristine tourist attractions such as the Tate Modern, South Bank arts complex, "Gherkin" office block, and Notting Hill. Overall, the film struck me as rather stilted and lifeless; and if it's Hitchcockian, it's the Hitch of Dial M for Murder.
Nevertheless, the film is deftly made and watchable, with more than a few surprises along the way, and all the principles filling their roles adequately, though I wasn't entirely convinced by Scarlett Johannson as femme fatale. Incidentally, one of the odder pieces of casting is the comedy actor and TV star, John Fortune, as the almost non-speaking chauffeur, though I note he is uncredited on IMDb.
Needless to say, since it is Woody Allen, it's a "must see" movie; but personally I hope for better from Scoop, and eventually would prefer to see him return to and do his work in the more familiar territory of Manhatten.