Allen Loses the Match

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 2006)

'Match Point' is Woody Allen's most serious film in many years. Like the superb 'Crimes and Misdemeanours' it has at it's heart a cheating husband who seeks to murderously remove the obstacle posed to his prized familial happiness by a pushy mistress. Sadly Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Chris (the poshest working-class-boy-made-good in cinema history) is no Martin Landau, and, though he sweats and pouts in a conspicuously angst-ridden manner in the latter stages of the film, his performance, overall, is seriously wooden - a woodenness which surprisingly extends to many of the supporting characters, which is unusual for Allen. Emily Mortimer as his doting wife and Scarlet Johansson are capable and consistent as, respectively, the love and lust of his life, but Rhys-Meyers' character is not solid enough for them to work with, or for audiences to care about them or him. Given the murderous conclusion to the film this makes for a peculiarly passionless love-triangle. Penelope Wilton and Brian Cox, as Mortimer's parents enjoy much less screen time, but are more convincing as characters than any of the younger leads. John Fortune, Mark Gattis, Ewan Bremner and a host of very fine British actors are given very little to do other than stand around like extras. A shocking waste of potential uncommon in a director who can normally be counted upon to use character actors well.
Odd trans-Atlantic clunkers in the script ("I thing you've had one too many G-and-T's, dear!"  the British middle-classes only ever talk like that in US films) aside, the serious tone of the script is maintained until, surprisingly, the final twenty minutes, when we are confronted by a few staggeringly ill-judged comic moment which jar astonishingly with what has gone before  and with the sudden spectral visitations of Chris's victims which follow. The ending is muddled and discordant. A shame  as otherwise it's a creditable addition to the Allen canon, far superior to other recent efforts.