Match Point

Plot synopsis:
Chris Wilton, a recently retired tennis professional, is taken on as an instructor at an upmarket club in London. He strikes up a friendship with a wealthy pupil, Tom Hewett, after discovering their common affinity for opera. Tom's older sister, Chloe, is smitten with Chris and the two begin dating. During a family gathering, Chris meets Tom's American fiancée, Nola Rice, and they are instantly attracted to each other. Tom's mother, Eleanor, does not approve of her son's relationship with Nola, a struggling actress, which is a source of tension in the family. Chloe encourages her father, Alec, to give Chris a job as an executive in one of his companies; he begins to be accepted into the family and marriage is discussed.
During a storm, after having her choice of profession attacked by Eleanor, Nola leaves the house to be alone. Chris follows Nola outside and confesses his feelings for her, and they passionately have sex in a wheat-field. Feeling guilty, Nola treats this as an accident; Chris, however, wants an ongoing clandestine relationship. Chris and Chloe marry, but Tom ends his relationship with Nola.
Chloe, to her distress, does not become pregnant immediately. Chris vainly tries to track down Nola, but meets her by chance some time later at the Tate Modern. He discreetly asks for her number and they begin an affair. While Chris is spending time with his wife's family, Nola calls to inform him that she is pregnant. Panicked, Chris asks her to get an abortion, but she refuses, saying that she wants to raise the child with him. Chris becomes distant from Chloe, who suspects he is having an affair, which he denies. Nola urges Chris to divorce his wife, and he feels trapped and finds himself lying to Chloe as well as to Nola. Nola confronts him at his work and he just barely escapes public detection.
Soon after, Chris takes a shotgun from his father-in-law's home and carries it to his office in a tennis bag. On leaving, he calls Nola on her mobile to tell her he has good news for her. He goes to Nola's building and gains entry into the apartment of her neighbor, Mrs. Eastby. He shoots and kills her, then stages a burglary by ransacking the room and stealing some jewelry and drugs. As Nola returns he shoots her in the stairwell. He then takes a taxi to the theater to watch a musical with Chloe. Scotland Yard investigates the crime and concludes it was committed by a drug addict stealing money. The following day, the murder is in the news. Chris returns the shotgun and he and Chloe announce that she is pregnant with Chris' child.
Detective Mike Banner invites Chris for an interview in relation to the murder. Beforehand, Chris throws Mrs. Eastby's jewelry and drugs into the river, but by chance her ring bounces on the railing and falls to the pavement. At the police station, Chris lies about his relationship with Nola, but Banner surprises him with her diary, in which he is featured extensively. He confesses his affair to Banner but denies any link to the murder, and appeals to the detectives not to involve him any more in their investigation, as news of the affair may well end his marriage just as he and his wife are expecting a baby.
Later one night, Chris sees apparitions of Nola and Mrs. Eastby, who tell him to be ready for the consequences of his actions. He replies that his crimes, though wrong, had been "necessary", and that he is able to suppress his guilt. At the same time, Banner dreams that Chris committed the murders. His theory is discredited by his partner, Dowd, who informs him that a drug peddler found murdered on the streets had Mrs. Eastby's ring in his pocket. Banner and Dowd consider the case closed and abandon any further investigation.
Chloe gives birth to a baby boy named Terrence, and his uncle blesses him not with greatness, but luck, which his father (Chris) has in spades, since he was able to avoid being punished for his crimes.

Tags: romantic, boring, murder, plot twist, clever

Review:
Match Point draws its audience in quietly and slowly at first, defining its territory as a smart, hip, and sophisticated character study early on (in no way unexpected for Mr. Allen), but then it takes an irreversibly sinister turn as one man threatens to bring everybody we have grown to love and respect down with him.
...and what a great stroke of luck it is to have sat through Woody Allen's latest, "Match Point." Fans of Woody could sense his comeback in the tragedy half of his last effort, "Melinda and Melinda." It was far more compelling than the comedy half, and the philosophical ideas it brought up were the best Woody Allen had given us in a long while.
This film, free of all the typical Allen shtick, and full of noirish twists and surprises, is every bit as good as Robert Altman's "The Player" or "Gosford Park," and like those two films, it's the best kind of return to form you could hope for from a past master.Chris Wilton (played moderately well by Johnathan Rhys Myers, who comes across as a more handsome Joquin Phoenix) is a failed tennis pro from Ireland who gets a plum job at a snobbish country club in London where he meets up with Tom (an appropriately British Matthew Goode), woos his sister, Chloe (an adorable Emily Mortimer), and has an affair with Tom's flighty fiancée, a struggling American actress named Nola (a ravishing Scarlett Johansson).
The film starts off like a more refined version of last year's tawdry affair, "Closer," with Allen exploring the love lives of semi-bored, over-educated filthy rich Brits who when not hopping in and out of each other's beds are hob-nobbing at the opera, the latest art exhibit, or lounging around their lavish estates reading and drinking.
Don't get me wrong, I think Melinda and Melinda is a good movie, but 'Match' is more fulfilling.Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a former tennis pro turned tennis teacher who is of Irish lower class.
Though this performance may not be as good as her performance in Lost in Translation, its still good enough to get her an Academy Award Nomination.Match Point starts off as a drama and works its way into being a very tense psychological thriller, and Woody Allen shows he is still in top form by trying something daring, and pulling it off.
The best way to see this film is without knowing too much about it as I did and you will come away from it declaring that Woody Allen is still alive and kicking and still able to make a masterpiece even after all these years..
But finally Allen has returned to the game with a subtle but perfectly done thriller which allows him to reinvent himself and discover new terrain like a brand new filmmaker.Match Point offers a simple but powerful message that luck plays a huge part in everyday life which to a major extent is true.
As a failure, Chris finds luck with Chloe's rich family willing to set him up with whatever he desires.The film is very similar to Woody's 1989 masterpiece Crimes and Misdemeanors and it takes similar turns.
That the performances by the actors involved, particularly the three main leads are top notch (Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Emily Mortimer, and Scarlett Johnasson in one of her best) brings full blood and flesh to Woody's strong skeleton of a film.The story starts slow.
For some it might not even 'feel' like a Woody Allen movie, that at times it's a little 'slick'.
Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode did as much as they could with their one dimensional characters which was to be charming and sweet.Woody Allen has done some less than great movies in recent years, but now he just seems to be going through the motions.
The critics who are giving this movie over the top great reviews should watch "Crimes and Misdemeanors" to see what a masterpiece by Woody Allen is really like..
I guess the young hot cast and new location doesn't seem like the usual Woody Allen film, even though he used young hot talents before.
A problematic film for long-time Woody Allen fans.Essentially, this is the Hallmark card version of Crimes and Misdemeanors (via An American Tragedy, A Place in the Sun, Room at the Top and many others) which provides as much sustenance as gorging on angel-food cake.
The rest of the cast consist of reliable British actors who have severely underwritten and badly observed parts (Brian Cox's monotone father tends to grate, as does the ludicrously plummy brother and sister) or distracting cameos by well known TV performers who have seemingly wrangled themselves a bit of immortality by being in a Woody film.London itself is reduced to a cardboard cutout Manhattan-like island where people always bump into each other (whether it be in Mayfair shopping for Casmere jumpers or casually hanging out at the Tate Modern), and every move made includes the incorporation of some major landmark in the background.
If Woody had decided to pay homage to Rene Clair's wonderful surrealist film 'Paris Qi Dort' (about a man who lives at the top of the Eiffel Tower) by having his main character find a great flat inside Big Ben, I wouldn't have been any less convinced.As for the dialogue, the less said the better.
And I would have found it a much better film if it hadn't been a murder film, which is cheap to resort to for making a point.I like Woody Allen's work (even when he plays the same neurotic character over and over again), but every time he tries to make a serious crime film, this happens.
The performances were varied: Jonathan Rhys Meyers seemed like a more annoying, stupider Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson played the femme fatale character better than any other actress her age could have, though the film's tone was off, and she became less convincing as her character was supposed to be more sympathetic.
Unfortunately, the screenplay is bad enough that it is difficult to recognize these things.A few final notes: Woody Allen is not Ingmar Bergman, despite what he seems to think (if you see the movie, you'll know which scene I'm talking about).
I once read that K Hepburn was described as delivering every emotion "from a to b", well JRM does not get to B and "a" is only explored with the minimum of effort, I think JRM (main actor) delivered his lines as though he was sitting on the loo reading them to himself; its a lovely whimsy of what London and Britain might be like to some people, but "Pappa" does not get you jobs or wealth in London any more.It is a dreadful film, dreadful acting, they all must have been needing cash very badly.
Just to be clear - I like Woody Allen films and being originally from London, was really looking forward to this movie.
The main problem with this film is the unconvincing central performance of Jonathan Rhys Meyers - and you would have thought a director of Allen's stature could have coaxed a better performance than this.
Scarlett Johansson and Emily Mortimer are good but wasted next to Meyers who seems to be trying to be the kind of Englishmen Americans imagine rather than going for any veracity.The plot itself works in that disjointed way Hollywood deals with time and has some merit with the final scenes at least raisng the interest but the changes in tone make the film inconsistent - an odd mix of uptight stage play and supposed thriller.If you want a dark treatment of relationships over time you would be much better off going for Closer.Disappointing..
The fact that a tennis pro with the looks of Ryhs Meyers would love opera and succeed in the City is laughable and makes the characters played by Rock Hudson in the Sirk movies positively neorealistic!
I have never written a comment on a movie site before because I'm a great believer in the personal relationship between a piece of cinema and a viewer.But having seen Match Point last night, I'm here to express a kind of horror I never thought I would get from a Woody Allen movieI knew there would be no comedy, but I did not expect to see every single rule in the world of dialogue-driven drama to be trampled on in such a crass, juvenile, my-first-film-studies- project kind of way.Woody Allen expresses emotion, creates suspense, exudes meaning  he DOES NOT SPELL THEM OUT!I couldn't believe I was hearing lines such as 'I'm so anxious'.
And more importantly, people know what they'd do in this kind of predicament precisely because this situation is so common  be nasty to her and she'll just go back to America again - there are plenty of ways to let your mistress down, and that does NOT include going for the shot gun!There was no great love between the two characters (the sex scenes are so old man's fantasy  in the rain, ripping her top off, baby lotion and blindfolded by a tie for god's sake), no tension (if you didn't see Scarlet would get pregnant, you should be ashamed of yourself) and the incidental characters worked as nothing more than warm props  unthinkable in Woody Allen films where the small characters always make the big picture.The film is called Match Point.
and then just to make the clanger even worse, it is mentioned later that the clichéd intellectual upper class father just happened to have a very interesting conversation with him about said ostentatious author.what are you doing, woody Allen, placing such a terrible actor in the centre of the film?
Seriousness does not equate to good drama.I love Woody - or used to - but haven't liked a movie of his since Crimes And Misdemeanors, which, not coincidentally, is the very film Woody reheats and waters down to make the tepid Match Point.
Crimes had a humorous subplot to balance the dark narrative, a story that wasn't completely predictable, three-dimensional characters and, above all, good acting (the supporting cast in both films was very good, but the leads in Match Point were shockingly bad, especially Ms. Johanssen).If you want to see Match Point, rent Crimes & Misdemeanors.
My only thought is that it can only be getting votes from people who would love to come to England and think this is what it is really like over here.Woody Allen should stick to playing his saxophone and watch his old classics on VHS.
the only saving grace was the performance by emily mortimer....i was shocked by jonathan rhys meyers acting...and i can only blame the director because i've seen some of his other films and really enjoyed his performances...he showed absolutely NO EMOTION and it was hard to imagine anyone falling for him...or even liking him....maybe that's why emily mortimer's character had to constantly repeat in the film "everbody likes you"....if i'd seen the movie in a theater...i probably would have walked out midway...although i would have missed the best part....the ending!.
I just returned from a disappointing viewing of the new Woody Allen movie Match Point, said to be "his best film in years." If this is true, I have not been missing much.
I am actually a big fan of Woody's best work, such as Broadway Danny Rose, Manhattan, and A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, but in Match Point Allen reveals that he has nothing to say and nothing to do but pile cliché upon cliché in a pitifully poor script and do laughable imitations of countless dopey domestic melodramas from past decades.
How come the critics cannot see that "match point" is a very poor and pale copy of his previous but utterly brilliant masterpiece "crimes and misdemeanors" (simply one of the best movie ever made by the way!)or that he even "borrowed" from others like Antony Minghella's "the talented Mr Ripley"?
In the same way and time, I had the impression that he needed to "introduce" an unusually new character for him: London.As for the comic side, I'll cite Trainspotting again, because Woody chose its Ewen Bremner to give us one of the few tiny (and great) spots of comicity in Match Point.Enjoy the film - and good luck!.
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers give brilliant performances in Woody Allen's new film Match Point..
It's a very well done movie.So in conclusion, I can definitely see where this movie is getting its buzz from not only because of the performances but the fact that Woody Allen has finally left his rich New York comedy setting and moved to London to make an engaging thriller.
In the ironic twist of fate at the end of the movie, something similar happens, although not related to a tennis match.Mr. Allen has gathered an interesting cast of mainly English actors that do good work under his direction.
Anyone who laments the fact that Alfred Hitchcock is no longer alive to make thrillers can rest easy---the Woodman is on the case."Match Point" is a ghoulishly entertaining movie that threatens to become a rip-off of "An American Tragedy" mixed with "Crime and Punishment," until Woody jerks the film in a totally different direction and makes it utterly original.For about the first twenty minutes of the film, I was thinking how ironic it was that Allen's best movie in a long time (and even in the first twenty minutes you can tell it is indeed going to be that) should also be his most unoriginal.
However, once the protagonist (for want of a better word) sets out to plan the "perfect" murder, inspired by "Crime and Punishment" (which you see him reading early on in the film), the movie becomes an anything-can-happen nailbiter, and had me on the edge of my seat.Scarlet Johannsson is remarkable as an emotionally unstable love interest; Allen uses her sultry good looks to perfect effect, and he includes her in some of the most erotic moments he's ever filmed.
This doesn't even seem like an Allen film at first glance, but many of his recurring themes are here, and his usual knack for writing such strong characters with such believable motives adds much to the suspense and effectiveness of the film overall.A true stunner of a movie, easily one of the best of the year.Grade: A.
It is extraordinary that a film maker as skilled and experienced as Woody Allen has after 36 years and some 40 movies as writer/director, made his Masterpiece.
I went to see this film knowing the ending after being told by a friend, I didn't expect much as I have never been a huge Allen fan, but this blew me away, the way it was written was original and engaging, the music 'clicked' perfectly with the scenes and the cinematography and every performance was top notch and some performances such as Johanssons were the best I had seen from that actor.
Match Point is Woody Allen trying something different with a great plot and script and a wonderful casting.I'm biased, OK.
I've been a Woody Allen fan for years, although I haven't liked all his movies.
In his late films I was missing the mood I loved about Crimes and Misdemeanors or Husbands and Wives, and Match Point recovers it in some way, even though it's a completely different movie.Another difference is the location.
Woody Allen shoots his first film in London, I spent the day watching him direct, it was a great experience.
When Nola gets pregnant and presses him, he balances the financial advantages of his marriage but he has to take a decision in his life and choose the woman he wants for his companion.The great director Woody Allen moved his landscape from Manhattan to London to present a totally different movie, actually a film-noir.
Even if you do not like Woody Allen's films, see "Match Point" that you probably will like it.
In what is his best work since "Crimes and Misdemeanors", and belonging in the same high class as "Manhattan" and "Annie Hall", "Match Point" has Mr. Allen exploring these same relationship topics within his newly discovered Britain setting.With the recurring theme of luck (the word is used at least 11 times in the script), the film takes Chris, a former Irish tennis pro ("Bend it Like Beckham" coach Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and tosses him into the upper crust of the British elite.
A good if not great Woody Allen film.
Along with Interiors(in a way), Match Point seems to be one of Woody Allen's most divisive films and that's understandable.
Overall, interesting film and a good one(at its best even very good), but not great, Woody Allen has done better.
I think many reviewers have already gone through the sheer absurdity of the "plot" , the wooden performances (and even Scarlett Johansson isn't really shining here), clichéd London scenes, cops that look like something out of Monty Python, but I just have two things to say to Woody Allen 1) when you were married to your leading ladies you made far better movies and 2) you may admire Almodóvar but you certainly ain't him, please stick to what you know best.
"Match Point" is Woody's most commercial film, and he defined him as his best.
I hope for better film from Woody Allen next time..
After a bundle of embarrassing movies, Woody Allen hits it out of the park with what is my opinion his best film, period.
In fact, it doesn't feel like Woody at all, which I daresay is great praise for the master film maker, proving he still has "it".A masterful performance from Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays a truly less than likable character to say the least, yet captures the audience and draws one into his twisted life.
In 'Match Point' Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Alexander and Bend It Like Beckham) plays Chris Wilton, a former tennis pro who wants more out of life.
Match Point is a fitting title to the story it tells and Woody Allen has certainly served up a film everyone will enjoy..