Solid enough; delivers where it counts...

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2009)

One of Woody Allen's most polarizing films, so far as I can tell, there seems to be very little neutral feeling on Match Point: viewers either hail it as a late-career gem, or deride it as an absolutely miscast, poorly-scripted farce. It's neither, really; what the film demonstrates best is that anything 'new' in Woody Allen films is essentially the Emperor's new clothes.
The novelty in Match Point is that the director has found a new playpen to cast his sophisticated characters and their discussions of high art and snobby social, um, concerns (in this case, London). Chris, an Irish semi-pro tennis player, earns the trust of a rich upper-class English family and marries into it. Then there's his jealous mistress, Scarlett Johansson, a struggling American actress, on the side. Their emotional dramas are played out through visits to the opera and art gallery, in which in one line a character is marveling at the intensity of an artist's brush-strokes and in the next are talking about having an affair or getting knocked up. It all sounds rather pretentious on paper, but here Allen's talent (as a writer and behind the lens) takes over and makes it all somehow believable, even compelling for a good hour of its runtime.
A common complaint with the film is that the attempts at British speak are risible and stilted. I'm not English, myself, so I'm not sure how accurate these criticisms are, but there are patches of dialog that are either clumsy or too obvious: Allen seems obsessed with tossing foreshadowing into his character's dialog, a trick that lends the production a feeling as artificial as the mechanics of his storyline. The whole tennis subplot is weakly written as well as executed, and could do with being excised. In terms of acting, Jonathan Rhys Meyers severely underplays his calculated lead character, appearing generally disinterested and sleepwalking through his part, and Scarlett Johansson is very good as his love interest, with a screen presence that makes the relationship between the two work - on that note, it's doubtful whether there's been a director as obsessed with his blonde star since Hitchcock. The supporting turns from Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode and Brian Cox are all convincing, and the direction is generally good.
The problem with Match Point is that there's a nagging evidence of pretension and patchiness that prevents the film from being entirely absorbing even when it's at its best - not usually a recommendable combination. In addition, Allen takes a serious wrong turn in the last third or so of his drama. Depending how you see it, what unfolds is either a plot twist or an aspiration for the sort of high drama you get in operas (get it? because the characters all love the arts so much!), yet it casts a 'wtf' shadow over the whole film. And then proceedings get weirder still, via ghosts hallucinations, and more clunky dialog... I felt cheated.
Misgivings aside, Match Point winds up a competent film with all of Woody Allen's expected trademarks, and is worth seeing for Scarlett Johansson's performance. Despite being muddled, it provides - despite its high-art focus - fairly decent, trashy entertainment.