January 6th, 2006
Match Point Review
When it comes to admirers, Woody Allen appears to have no grey areas. People love him or hate him, but a new film of his always inspires a certain amount of curiosity. What might tempt many back to see Match Point after the disappointing trio of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Celebrity and Anything Else, is that it’s Allen’s first production made entirely outside of his beloved New York. Instead of his usual coterie of boho neurotics, Allen has ditched his Manhattan regulars in favour of the British upper class establishment. While it seems a remarkable leap, the dramatis personae are people with different accents who don’t have therapists.
The main story follows an Irish arriviste to the English upper classes, Chris Wilton, (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) a former tennis professional who begins teaching at a tennis school where he meets the affluent Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode). Chris has worked his way up from meagre beginnings and is intoxicated by wealth and having tasted a more basic life, is determined never to live humbly again. The two become fast friends and Tom introduces Chris to two very different women: Chloe (Emily Mortimer), his shy, loveable sister and Nola (Scarlett Johansson), his American fiancée and archetypal siren. Despite Nola’s unavailability, Chris is bewitched but settles for single Chloe. At this point, revealing much more would indicate how the film will end, but in true Allen style, there is much inter-relationship angst and betrayal. Where the film differs from anything Allen has ever done, is in its darkness. I hadn’t seen the trailer beforehand (and I’d urge anyone to avoid it if they can) so when the noirish denouement finally came, I was shocked at how stark it is. Allen may have no grey areas with admirers, but the ending is completely black.
The strong start and austere ending are the few and far between highlights - they bookend what is essentially a flawed and irritating piece of work. Watching a Woody Allen film, you can never quite shake the sense of contrivance. That the characters happen to like art, opera and literature we expect. That they’re in London, you know it’s only a matter of time before there’s a scene shot in Tate Modern. In the film’s Production notes, a quote from Production Designer Jim Clay says of Allen: “He knew immediately whether a location was suitable.for example in Tate Modern, as soon as we went there he immediately embraced it because he could see it’s cinematic valueâ€?. This may be the case, but I felt the Tate would appear in at least one frame before reading these notes; it’s such an Allen-esque backdrop. While it’s initially amusing to hear the substitution of Belgravia for Park Avenue, Notting Hill for Tribeca, it’s difficult to escape the sense of inauthenticity of it all.
Despite all the trappings of wealth .the confident affluence . these characters are as self-obsessed of any of Woody Allen’s creations. Match Point is a stereotypical view of the British upper class and all the trappings are included: the country estate, expensive cars and the Gin-soaked mother (played with vim by Penelope Wilton). The most absorbing aspect of the film is watching the transformation of Chris, the outsider, from hard-working prole to covetous narcissist. Even his obsession with Nola, so convincing early on, causes the viewer to question whether he genuinely desires her or if she is merely another shiny trinket. More than once, the fact that Chris is Irish is mentioned, and always followed swiftly by how much he has managed to “better himselfâ€?. It’s a slightly archaic view of the Irish in England and Rhys-Meyers plays the part with an English accent, which tellingly starts to falter as the dramatic tension rises.
The film tries to make a subtle point about how hard work can be superseded (and rendered null and void) by a little luck. Instead of teasing out the nuances, Allen hammers it home clumsily and the clues . Rhys-Meyers reading Crime and Punishment . quickly become irritating. Not as irksome as Scarlett Johansson’s monosyllabic one-gear-only style of acting, but near enough. There is, however, a clever sequence near the end that borrows heavily from Shakespeare and Greek Tragedy. It features some of the film’s bit part players, who, in a nice move, happen to be real-life comedy actors playing policemen (Trainspotting’s Ewen Bremner, the ubiquitous James Nesbitt and The League of Gentleman’s Steve Pemberton) but the laughs are sparse in this dark but disappointing tale. Woody Allen has given us some of cinema’s most memorable moments in the last 30 years, but Match Point isn’t among them.
Sinéad Gleeson
January 5th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
I’ve only skimmed this, because for once in my life I’m actually thinking of going to see a Woody Allen film. It may be strange but I’ve seen anything of his before (unless you count that animated one, which I don’t).
If I do go I’ll let you know what I thought, and reread this post
January 6th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Interesting review.
I preferred Woody’s early stuff. I thought he got clever ideas over much better with comedy. He should have built on that but instead he tried to go all serious and dark and it just doesn’t always work for him in my opinion. His messages come over too confused and weak. Some of his early comedy work at times was admittedly dangerously close to slapstick and he could have developed more sophisticated humour and still make good points. Love and Death was one of my favourites. I still laugh at the image of Diane Keaton impulsively marrying the ugly Russian fish merchant who is passionate about his business. There is a wonderful moment where Diane is playing the piano in the drawing room and in the hallway background we can see her ugly husband tiptoeing stealthily up the stairs to bed carrying a large dead trout! No dialogue was needed for the scene, brilliant!
January 7th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
was meant to go and see this last night (the review in the ticket was startlingly good - 5 stars!) but ended up staying in the pub instead as after skimming your review here i ended up with mixed feelings about seeing it. May well go at some point though. I do know what you mean about Scarlett Johansson’s acting style (or rather lack thereof!) though. While it worked well in Lost in Translation because of the part, it does get a little tiresome.
January 8th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
…I saw Woody Allen’s new film, Match Point, yesterday. I must say that, unlike Sinéad at Sigla, I thought it was quite brilliant and, if not hilarious, satisfyingly witty. I won’t write a complete review, but after seeing the film, I’m surprised at how little comment has been made in the Arts section of our newspapers and magazines on Allen’s use of Dostoyevsky, and more particularly Crime and Punishment. …
January 8th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Gosh I thought it was fantastic. I interpreted the presence of all the stereotypes as a form of mockery. The shallowness of the upper class family, their belief in their goodness, the casual way they took for granted all their possessions and of course, the total predictability of their lives and the trite manner of how they praise hard work - it was actually pretty devastating commentary on an entire class. As for the plot, I was tense from the first second we met Rhys-Meyers ‘cos you know something awful was going to happen and no I hadn’t see the trailers, saw no reviews, had no idea what was coming and I was completely stunned. Oh, and the men who accompanied me were drooling over Scarlett. Sadly, I don’t fancy Jonathan and Matthew Goode, whilst kinda sexy, played the character of Tom so well that his arrogance negated his physical attractiveness. Thumbs up from me!
January 8th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
It was a herring. No one could feel that level of affection for a trout, obviously.
January 8th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
I’m an Allen fan who does not prefer his earlier, ‘funnier’ films (he makes fun of this categorisation himself in, i think, ‘Stardust Memories’). If it weren’t for woody, you could watch every American movie that gets a commercial release over here and never know that there were Americans who speak in sentences, read books or, indeed, go to art galleries.
I thought Match Point was unconvincing in places, too, though it held my attention and a mediocre Allen film is still better than the nonsense elsewhere in the multiplex.
What I thought was truly awful about the film was the ‘performance’ of Jonathan Rhys Myers - is it unpatriotic to say so? He spent the film in a pouting contest with Scarlett Johannson and every time he was supposed to be cogitating on good and evil he just looked as if he was trying to admire his own cheekbones in a mirror.
And, Sinead, if you get a chance to interview Woody, ask him how he came up with the idea of a poor Irish country boy escaping his roots armed only with a tennis racket and a public school accent. Somewhat unlikely!
January 8th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
I’m a huge Woody Allen fan but I still manage to be objective about his films. I’ve really wanted to like the last few, and Match Point is better than its three predecessors - but not by much. Allen is getting way too formulaic for me. Even if the formula was good, I just found this an exercise in phonyness.
I think I’d pretty much agree with Peter Bradshaw’sreview and use his word to sum up the film - ersatz.
January 8th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
And, Sinead, if you get a chance to interview Woody, ask him how he came up with the idea of a poor Irish country boy escaping his roots armed only with a tennis racket and a public school accent. Somewhat unlikely!
The Tribune’s interview with Rhys-Meyers today says that it was only when Woody found out that Meyers himself is actually Irish that he decided to make the character Irish.
January 9th, 2006 at 1:32 am
Thanks for the herring correction Copernicus. It’s a good few years since I’ve seen Love and Death. You must have enjoyed the movie too since you remembered the detail better than I! Others I liked were Annie Hall, The Sleeper, Bananas and Manhattan. But certainly some bits of each were too silly.
January 10th, 2006 at 1:21 am
I can practically quote Love and Death line for line. I recommend watching it while drunk, it’s an hysterical experience.
I’m a bigtime Woody fan - I pick up what books I can and even have a cd of his standup, but I’ve been very disappointed since Deconstructing Harry (which was great). I went to see Small Time Crooks in the Kino in Cork with a very strange audience of what looked like 45 year old lawyers who laughed there arses off all the way through. I thought it sucked balls.
My faves are Manhattan, Stardust Memories and (of the earlier funny stuff) Love and Death, and of course, Crimes and Misdemeanours, er, and of the late charming stuff, Manhattan Murder Mystery.
January 11th, 2006 at 1:14 am
This appears to be a ‘love-it or hate-it’ film. Personally, I choose the latter. I went in to it with an open mind, frankly because I didn’t know Woody Allen directed it (mistake #1: Woody Allen needs to stop making films). My girlfriend had convinced me to see it by mentioning the fact that Scarlett Johannson was in it (mistake #2: she’s an oxygen waster). The addition of Jonathan Rhys Myers only made this film worse (listing the reason behind this mistake is a criminal offence in most modern countries). I actually laughed out loud when a character referred to him as ‘Irish’ (as in ‘Oi, Irish’…)
Being a fan of film, and being stuck in the middle of the row, I sat through it. By the end, almost half of the packed audience had seen it fit to leave. I applaud them. Film, cinematography and the bumbling detectives at the end were the only saving graces of this film.
Rhys-Myers lines were predictably alpha-male. How he managed to convincingly pull them off is beyond me. There’s something too ’stagey’ about his acting. The British accent didn’t wash well with me either. The plot lines were predictable too, at no stage was I left thinking “What’s going to happen next?”
To finish my little rant here: If you have the money to spend on a ticket for this film, please don’t. He’ll (Allen) only go and make another…
May 11th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I like your review, although I liked the movie a little better than you did.
October 14th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Wow, Scarlett was named sexiest woman by Esquier? She is pretty hot, but I think more in an average way.