A Beautiful Looking Pastiche of Many Films and Literary Works

Rating: 5/10 (13 January 2006)

"Match Point" is such a pastiche of many films and literary works, some self-referentially preened, that I occupied myself identifying them throughout the movie.
Starting with a repeating visual motif of tennis balls across the net recalling a classic image from "Blow Up," scenes at a Wimbledon-like club near the opening seem straight out of Evelyn Waugh, such as in "Bright Young Things." Two guys exchange a freighted conversation about loving opera I thought for sure was a coded gaydar filter so we'd be seeing them either on the down low or bi, especially as Matthew Goode is channeling a young Rupert Everett.
But, no, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is more conventionally manipulative as we see him reading "Crime and Punishment," and the Penguin equivalent of Cliff Notes of Dostoevsky for analysis (and poshing up his native accent even as Goode keeps teasingly calling him "Irish").
Courting is done, as in many references to Woody Allen's own "Crimes and Misdemeanors," by seeing old black and white movies during the day (portentously "Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes)") or foreign ones (ironically class-conscious "The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta)" with a rich girlfriend of an ambitious guy who makes quite different decisions) though this film actually focuses very little on Dreiser's class differentials of the similar "American Tragedy").
The setting is supposed to be contemporary, but other than some frank discussion of birth control and fertility treatments, these folks love opera and collect classic cars. Not an iPod in sight and computers are something mysteriously used at vague jobs. It would make sense if Penelope Wilton's tippling matriarch was the source of inherited wealth and Brian Cox's patriarch a wealthy business tycoon, recalling Edith Wharton, let alone F. Scott Fitzgerald, but that would make too much sense, as we're supposed to assume this is an old, inbred family. This seems to be parallel to Allen's oeuvre as "Age of Innocence" is to Scorcese and "Gosford Park" is to Altman's, but their period specificity added the weight of historical social changes to come that this film is lacking.
Instead, what we get is basically another take on the character of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," and Rhys-Meyers is much better than Matt Damon, as sexy as Alain Delon was in the "Purple Noon (Plein soleil)" interpretation and far more emotional than both, in his lust and in his chutzpah. He dynamically carries the last part of the movie by creating the kind of villain where the whole audience first starts rumbling about him to each other and then yelling to him on the screen. His Bergman-like confrontation with ghosts, while visual, is far less effective than the moral and religious discussions in "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Up until her last few Shelley Winters-in-"A Place in the Sun"-channeling hysteria scenes, Scarlett Johansson has some of the smartest and sexiest seduction dialog in any of Allen's films. But her character stops making a lot of sense.
Emily Mortimer pretty much plays the same love-lorn victim she did in "Young Adam" and doesn't get to expand into the further tender vulnerability she projected in "Lovely and Amazing."
With the film co-produced by BBC, it's nice to see wonderful actors from TV series such as "Spooks (MI-5)," "Murphy's Law" and "Prime Suspect," who add authenticity heft in small roles.
The production design and music are way over the top. The continuous opera excerpts, sounding like they are playing from old '78's, are a change from Allen's usual jazz, but seem a forced exaggerated theatricality (even as Rhys-Meyers amusingly uses the decidedly more middle-brow mystery "The Woman in White" as an alibi). With one of the characters interested in contemporary art, he is constantly surrounded by paintings that comment on his actions, such as a large red rooster emphasizing his cuckoldry and another with the word "ache" writ large across it, etc.
The best elements of the film are ironically visualizing the elements of luck and chance, as applied to tennis, fertility and life.
This film looks beautiful and has nothing new to show or say.