Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, and Matthew Goode.
Director and Writer: Woody Allen.
It has been said that Woody Allen has not created a good film in a while. I would be of the camp that Mr. Allen’s storytelling style is so pronounced that it has hindered him from a positive reaction from many a viewer. The thing that makes Match Point work is that Woody Allen throws himself out of his comfort zone and by changing some of the elements of his story type he goes and makes a compelling thriller. The film has desire, pain, love, and an element of growing up where it is not about what makes you happy, but what can one live with.
The film begins with the lead character Chris Wilton, who is amazingly played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers saying that being lucky is a more desirable character trait than being good. This is the crux to the film. Chris is an Irish tennis star who looks for work as a coach at a tennis club. One day he meets the son of a British business mogul by the name of Tom Hewett, played by Matthew Goode, who after a glass of wine and a discussion of opera leads Chris to a visit to the opera, romance, and good fortune.
The interesting thing about fortune and romance is that it favors epic motions and actions. The film shows this with a rushed, to the point pace. It takes place over a span of years in which days are brought together by ego, desire and greed. Within a short time our protagonist finds love, respect, money, lust, family, and fear. The underlying vibe of the film was the notion that it may make sense to try and marry up, but when one marries up, they are met with lowly desire and that may destroy a chance at the good life.
The objects of desire in Match Point are well played by Scarlett Johansson and Emily Mortimer. The two play different sides of the same coin of the feminine identity for our intrepid tennis player on the road to a good life. Mortimer plays Chloe the secondary love interest and is the woman that our lead uses to go and attain a good life. The role of a spoiled Rich Girl is a hard part to play, but Emily Mortimer plays it well with the sincerity and forthright nature of a woman who is used to getting what she wants. Johansson has an easier role to play with as the sole American, Nola Rice. She is the requisite vixen of our tale. Nola starts off as a Tom’s fiancé, as she tries to make her way as an actress, but with other things in mind. Her relationship ends and when she leaves it hits Chris badly, because he is in lust with her. This lust is embraced and then rejected whenever it is convenient for all involved.
The film then proceeds to display the affair between Nola and Chris and a relationship of life while Chris’s relationship with his wife Chloe hits a rough patch due to the infidelity. The romance proceeds to close in on Chris as the falsehoods starts to conflict, contort, and mutilate and form a sense of dread and desperation between all parties as they try to get what they want in life. Then tragedy strikes and what makes the film interesting in the nature of the pain, the one truly valued currency is that of convenience.
What makes this work striking is that Woody Allen wrote and directed this film. The way the film works is that with a location change from New York to London he creates a new dynamic for his work. Gone is the neurosis that normally hangs over Allen’s films and this is replaced by a normalcy that makes what happens startling. Instead what is in display here is a story not at all dissimilar to the tales that graphic novel great Will Eisner would create.
Another element that makes the film interesting is that it is a story about foreigners in love in a foreign land. It is brought up on a constant basis throughout the film about how Chris, the Irish sportsman and Nola, the Colorado actress both attempt to join the British upper class and how both meet and fail in their social attempts to be greater than the perceived station in live in a rich man’s world. Match Point is a very engrossing work because it dares to look into the motivations of love and to reflect on what is the real desire for all involved.
- Francis Davis a career drunk with a love of comics and movies, lives in and works for the City of Chicago. Confidentiality agreements prevent him from saying exactly what he does, but it is important.