Missing New York

Rating: 6/10 (1 March 2006)

SPOILERS Throughout his long and distinguished career, just how many films has Woody Allen set outside of his native New York? Not many spring to mind truthfully (older classics like "Sleeper" and "Everything you wanted to know about Sex... but were afraid to ask" for example), but with 2005's "Match Point" it might be that we are beginning to understand why. A firm believer in New York, most people would argue that he knows the place like the back of his hand. Relocating to London (for money?), Allen appears to be out of his depth. Creating an occasionally intense thriller, he gives us a perfect, tourist like view of London, distorted for the American audiences. With a cast of major British actors, he also manages to fill the two main roles with an excellent American and an awful Brit. Woody, for the sake of all the beautiful scripting that we know you can do, go home mate.
Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a former tennis pro, now working as a tennis instructor at a posh London club. Falling for the incredibly rich Chloe Hewett (Emily Mortimer) things are going great. That is until he encounters the beautiful and sultry American Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). Once Chris gets the image of Nola stuck in his head, it is stuck there.
It isn't difficult to see why Woody Allen considers Scarlett Johansson to be his new muse. Absolutely stunning throughout this film, she is the definite highlight. On top form with her performance, she gives us a strong and powerful character who we are never really sure what to think of.
In contrast to Johansson, Rhys Meyers is absolutely dreadful. An incredibly wooden actor, the guy is awful. Aside from the Queens English coming from an Irish character, he just never seems to click into place in the film, and for much of it, we really do develop a strong disliking for him. Whatever situation he finds himself in, there is no sympathy there. Now some might stipulate that this is Woody Allen's fault, and to a small degree this is true. Yes Woody wrote and directed the film, yes he wrote a script so painfully unBritish that you grate your teeth at times, but whatever Woody did, Meyers is the one who fails to give the character any sort of life, and who annoys throughout.
That point about Woody's script is worth going into further. Whilst a writer and director of great skill, let us not forget that his finest moments have come in scenes where he is in a New York café or where he is making some witty comment on a New York street. As Woody is from New York, he knows how they speak perfectly. Unfortunately with "Match Point", he manages to give us a script which is so hideously false that you wonder why more of his outstanding British cast (Brian Cox, Penelope Wilton, etc) didn't correct him more often. Woody writes New York perfectly, he writes British incredibly badly.
Woody Allen's last few films have been about ideas. Whilst "Melinda & Melinda" was an inconsistent film about comedy and tragedy, here we have another inconsistent film about luck. As Woody gets older, he seems to become increasingly more philosophical, and this is no bad thing. Unfortunately though, when he relocates from his native New York and begins casts awful British actors in the main roles, he wastes a perfectly good idea for a film. Woody, keep Scarlett, she's amazing, but please, for the sake of your fans, go back to America.