Allen's Best Since Crimes and Misdemeanors

Rating: 10/10 (21 June 2006)

Woody Allen's Match Point is an extremely entertaining, well-made thriller about lust, greed and ambition and the tragic consequences of these aspects, but in the process we identify with Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Myers), a poor boy from Ireland who had a brief career in tennis, but at one point in the movie he says: "I was never going to be an Andre Agassi, so I decided to give it up." Then later on in the movie we find out more about why he gave tennis up and the reason is the theme Allen uses throughout the film.
Instead, he is a tennis instructor at a London tennis club and one day, by chance, he meets Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode) who's family is very rich and part of high society London. He invites Chris to the opera, and there he meets Tom's sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) she is immediately attracted to Chris. This becomes the turning point in his life for the good, or so he thinks. Chris likes Chloe, but he's not in love with her. She loves him, her father Alec (Brian Cox) likes him and wants to get him started in one of his companies and her mother Eleanor (Penelope Wilton) is also fond of him and she wants to see her daughter have what she wants. Chris sees Chloe's attraction to him as an opportunity to climb up the social latter. The problem with Chris's plan is that his relationship with Chloe is mechanical because he is only with her to enter the royal family.
But when he does meet a woman he is very attracted to, she turns out to be Tom's fiancé. He meets her at the house, when he finds her playing ping ping. In their first flirtatious encounter, after the woman beats someone else at ping ping, she says: "next victim." Chris comes over and is already filled with lust. Then, the woman says to him "how about playing for $1000 a game"? Chris agrees and after one quick serve, she says to him, "anybody ever tell you play a very aggressive game." Chris replies: "Did anybody ever tell you that you have very sensual lips." The woman is Nola (Scarlett Johansson), a struggling American actress who Chris begins an affair with and then can't seem to shake her.
The strength of the movie is Allen's deceptive plot. It has many cunning, ingenious twists that are not anticipated. I will be diligent for the rest of this review so I won't reveal any of the surprises that makes this movie one of the best of the year and Allen's best in years. This movie resembles Crimes and Misdemeanors, where the main character finds himself in a situation that would jeopardize his comfortable life of wealth and privilege. It conveys how far he is willing to go for his own greed. The movie is more about plot than characters, and the way the drama of the plot unfolds is the joy of watching the film. The plot is clockwork. The movie is rich in irony, like many of Allen's films and here it's like he's trying to convince you he's still one of the smartest writers in the business.
There are three very good performances in the movie. Jonathan Rhys Myers carries his main character very well. He expresses his anguish at the events that unfold in a very effective way. He is especially good in the scenes with Scarlett Johansson. He conveys the lust he feels for her through his face and eyes that makes it all the more convincing. He also evokes empathy for his tragic flaw of ambition that leads him to lie, cheat, deceive and then even worse. He doesn't deserve forgiveness, but pity. Johansson is very sexy and juicy in her role. Allen gives her the sexy flirtatious dialogue she needs to thoroughly convince us that she loves to edge men on, especially Chris for that matter. Emily Mortimer is also very effective as Chloe as she strives to bring Chris closer to her because for some reason she can't put her finger on, he often seems distant.
There is a crucial scene near the middle of the movie when Chris meets an old friend on the street. He turns out to be a tennis player he once knew on the tour. At one point in their conversation he says to Chris: "If a couple bounces would have went your way, you could have been a champion." That two minute scene is one of the dark undercurrents lurking beneath the surface. The theme of luck is set up so clearly that it sets up for the single best shot of the film. The shot is only about five seconds long, and it comes towards the end of the film when something is thrown and doesn't clear a railing that leads into the Thames River. The shot is so perfect, it'll make you gasp.
When it comes down to Chris Wilton's Match Point, does he get lucky and the ball clears the net and he wins or does he get a dose of bad luck when the ball falls backward and he loses? That's for you to see. All I will say is that the police are involved and are trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the events that unfolded, but they run into a little bad luck and as for Chris, he runs into some good luck, but still doesn't know whether he's won or lost the point. A masterful film noir from Woody Allen. Extremely cleverly written and directed. Highly Recommended. 4 stars out of four.