Getting what you want...but at the expense of true fulfillment

Rating: 6/10 (5 July 2014)

Writer-director Woody Allen, so proficient in comedy, has also been comfortably at home in straight dramas, and "Match Point" is probably his meanest dramatic movie to date--and arguably his most polished. A young, well-heeled British executive, married but carrying on an affair with an American girl, finds himself in an unwinnable situation when his girlfriend tells him she's pregnant; she wants to have the baby, naturally, and stubbornly expects him to leave his wife (and, consequently, his cushy position in life). Allen doesn't view the participants in this deadly game as immoral; just the opposite, in fact. He sees the frailty of the human heart--and in the tug-of-war between love and lust--and uses this to paint a deliciously involving portrait of 'ordinary' lives turned inside-out by lies and deception caused by romantic indiscretion. The film gets you in the gut, although the concluding events, engineered to make Allen's point about getting one's way at the expense of others, are not especially convincing. The performers are nicely-attuned to the material and the narrative defies going over-the-top, which is remarkable considering where Allen takes the characters. **1/2 from ****