Match Point (2005) ***

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2009)

A young Irish tennis instructor marries a woman he's not very much in love with to gain prominence through her family, but begins to have a fling with an American girl (Scarlett Johansson) and then a real dilemma he has to contend with. This glorified Woody Allen film really lived up to its hype. All I figured going in was that it was going to be a love story with a boring tennis backdrop, but I got a lot more than I bargained for, especially with the wild direction things took later in the story ... I never expected it.
I loved the camera work here, a lot of really beautiful cinematic touches. It helped a lot that the story takes place in England, which is a much-welcome break from Allen's typical Manhattan scenarios and affords an opportunity for some very nice scenic touches. The sex scenes are hot and steamy, and it's a credit to Allen that he manages to make them so exciting even without resorting to showing blatant nudity.
Scarlett Johansson is physically beautiful, but she leaves something to be desired for me in the acting department, at least during the first half (she got better later). The real star of the piece is Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the tennis pro whose life is in turmoil. He's just superb and runs the gamut with a varying degree of emotions in a multi-layered character. And I'm glad there wasn't too much tennis in this! I had feared the worst on that score from the start. This is a great achievement for Woody Allen, one of the best films he's ever done, and a triumph he needed in recent years. It's so different from most of his other movies. *** out of ****