Only Caruso Provides Passion in Pointless Match Point

Rating: 2/10 (31 January 2006)

I just returned from a disappointing viewing of the new Woody Allen movie Match Point, said to be "his best film in years." If this is true, I have not been missing much. I am actually a big fan of Woody's best work, such as Broadway Danny Rose, Manhattan, and A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, but in Match Point Allen reveals that he has nothing to say and nothing to do but pile cliché upon cliché in a pitifully poor script and do laughable imitations of countless dopey domestic melodramas from past decades. Most of the movie gives us a meaningless triangle of man, wife, and lust-mate, the horribly stale story of a man whose work is hurt by his romantic infidelities, and an afterthought of callous murders and an O'Henry final twist that would hardly be enough to justify a short, short, short story.
Naturally I loved the gorgeous singing of the young Caruso (obviously a cynical pandering to the vast number of people who like scratchy records) and was intrigued to learn what lyric tenor was trying to sing Otello (Lotric?). I guess the budget forced the director to have operatic scenes at Covent Garden performed to piano accompaniment rather than with orchestra.
Woody casts very beautiful people, lights them flatteringly, and gives them endless super closeups. Woody loves the cloudy London weather and supplies lots of beautiful scenery, inside houses and in the countryside. But the script is so poor that the photogenic actors--most of whom possessing very limited talent--cannot help being trite and even ridiculous. The very lovely Scarlett Johansson is given the phoniest lines in the most hackneyed situations and cannot rise above the tripe of the script.
Go for the music and the pretty pictures, but don't expect anything new, clever, or worthwhile from the script.