Crimes and Misdemeanours, revisited.

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2007)

Match Point brings Woody Allen back to the dark, dramatic, moralistic territory of his best film, 1988's Crimes and Misdemeanours, as he weaves a bleakly bitter tale that is one part Dickens and one part Dostoyevsky to look at the notions of luck and the luckless. Many have viewed it as a return to form for the filmmaker - citing it as his best film in more than a decade - whilst others have seen it as an unmitigated failure. Where you stand on the issue will really be down to personal taste. If you tend to check your watch when a film goes ten minutes without a car chase, or roll your eyes at scenes of characters (get this) talking, then you might want to give it a miss. However, if you like a film to offer a deep and dramatic set-up that isn't afraid to put aside notions of entertainment to get across a serious message then by all means, read on.
The film deals with ideas of class and what it takes to negotiate the class system in order to scale the social ladder. The central character is Chris; a working class lad from Ireland, who began his professional career as a teenager, washing cars for a local business man. Eventually, he bluffed his way onto the tennis courts where he managed to become a fairly gifted and much-talked about newcomer. After a few decent match performances, he returns to London and establishes himself as a coach at an upper class spa. Here, he meets Tom Hewitt, the only son of a wealthy Industrialist. The two become friends and eventually Chris meets Tom's sister Chloe. He also meets Tom's seductive American girlfriend Nola. Here the central narrative ark of the film is developed, with Chris entering into a proper relationship with Chole - whose father makes sure he gets the best job, the best apartment and a guaranteed shot at an all together more comfortable way of life - as well as beginning a secret affair with the sexual and sensual Nola. As the film moves toward its final act, Chris has to decide whether to stay with a wife he is only mildly attracted to (and remain in the life he has subsequently become accustomed to) or go for the more exciting Nola (and thus, sacrifice the trendy flat, the chauffeur, the good job and high salary, etc).
Amongst this central story there are the aforementioned allusions to the class system, to the nature of love and morality, and more importantly, the central notion of luck and the luckless. The film takes a turn for an altogether darker tone towards the end, which again, is in keeping with some of Allen's best work, for example, his flawed though no less interesting dramatic trilogy of Interiors, September and Another Woman, as well as masterworks like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanours, and Husbands and Wives. Unlike those films, which used cinematic conventions and references, Match Point tends to use literary conventions. The central allusions to Dostoyevsky are extremely pertinent, particularly in the self-conscious and self-aware "twist" towards the end of the film, which, I suppose, could easily be seen as something approaching a 'deus-ex-machina', as Allen (without giving too much away), twists the acceptable course of events to set up a different way of thinking (again, without giving too much away, I'm talking specifically about the police officers who appear at the end) that helps to further his philosophical discussion, as opposed to ending the film on a dramatic or entertaining note.
As I noted earlier, this won't be a film for everyone. The dialog has intent, so therefore can be a little stagy to those expecting something more naturalistic. Also, the characters are very cold, as is the world that they inhabit. In this respect, the film was reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, in the respect that both films unfold in strangely cold and clinical environments that seems more like a subconscious fabrication; and that's not mentioning the narrative similarity in tracing one man's journey into his own (dark) subconscious (incidentally, if you hated Eyes Wide Shut, you may very well hate this). Unlike most viewers, the depiction of central London, whether a distortion or not, matters not to me. I love Godard, but certainly don't expect the Paris depicted in Breathless or A Woman is A Woman to have looked anything like the actual Paris of 1961, just as I don't accept any of Allen's more characteristic New York movies to be indicative of life in that particular city. This is not a documentary; it's a film and a film with a moral message.
Allen, throughout, makes a number of valid points about the role of luck in relation to the philosophy that we "create our own good fortune", with the closing twist only highlighting a glaring miscarriage of justice which sadly, happens all too often in everyday life. Match Point is a film in which everything seems deliberate and nothing is accidental. The walking stereotypes that masquerade as the English upper classes are right out of an Evelyn Waugh novel, which is intended to juxtapose against Nola's exotic, trailer-trash Americana and Chris's romanticised "James Joyce meets Tom Ripley". Artfully shot, austere and deliberately paced, Match Point seemed to me like the kind of film that could have been made between 1966 and 1975 by filmmakers like Jean Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, or Lindsay Anderson. As I've said before, it won't be to all tastes, but those interested in real cinema that doesn't pander to notions of entertainment or generic convention might want to give it a try.