Match Point Review
by Rick Ferguson (filmgeek65 AT hotmail DOT com)February 20th, 2006
I just finished reading Bob Spitz's new biography of the Beatles. It's an easy read, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it. Spitz does a bang-up job describing the Quarrymen days and the legendary Hamburg gigs, but after the Beatles become, well, the Beatles, the insights are slight. You learn that Lennon was an asshole, McCartney was a control freak and that Yoko did indeed break up the band. The entire recording of "Sgt. Pepper's" takes up a mere three pages.
But seeing MATCH POINT did make me think of Paul McCartney- and if you think I'm reaching for a connection between Woody and Paul, then you're probably right. All Sir Paul did was change the entire face of popular music by the time he was 28. Like all artists who peak in their 20s, Paul has spent the rest of his career overshadowed by the specter of his own youth. His solo career exhibited varying levels of success and suckitude, but none of McCartney's failures seemed to slow him down. He simply kept on doing the only thing he knew how to do- make music.
So it goes with Woody Allen. The Woodster got a later start then McCartney, but nonetheless became a star before he turned 30, and pulled off the Oscar trifecta with Best Picture, Director and Screenplay awards for ANNIE HALL at age 42. Allen would peak again, in a run that began with THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO in 1985 and lasted more or less through 1992's HUSBANDS AND WIVES- in other words, the Mia Farrow period. But the 21st Century has seen Allen in a creative tailspin that crashed into the metaphorical mountainside in 2002 with the truly dreadful HOLLYWOOD ENDING. But much like McCartney, Allen greets each new success or failure the same way: he gets up in the morning, takes a piss, eats a bagel and starts working on his next project.
Now, at age 71, he gives us MATCH POINT. The critics who have called it Allen's best film since 1989's CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS ain't just whistling Dixie. They're right because CRIMES is Allen's greatest film, period, and MATCH P OINTis essentially a remake. They're also right because, frankly, Allen's last several films haven't provided much in the way of competition. What's most surprising is how muscular, how sublimely confident, how clean and pure this film is. It's the work of a man who's gotten a third wind. But longtime Allen fans- and I am one, although it took me a few years to get past the guy's sordid personal life- can't help but think that he's treading on some well-worn ground.
Forsaking his beloved New York and the trials of its upper-class WASPs and Jews for the trials of upper-class Londoners, MATCH POINT follows the career and social ladder-climb of Irish tennis pro Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) as he worms his way into the good graces of the Hewett family. Chris has played and lost to Sampras and Agassi, but blames his lack of success on a few bad bounces; hard work and talent can take you far, Chris says, but people underestimate the importance of dumb luck.
Said dumb luck arrives in the form of heir-apparent Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), who takes a shine to Chris as a fellow opera buff and invites him to the family's box at the Royal Opera House. There Chris meets the two women who will form the matter and anti-matter of his life: Chloe Hewett (Emily Mortimer), whose role in the family is to produce a grandson as quickly as possible; and Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), Tom's smoking hot American fiancée, who wants to be an actress but who will settle for marrying into vast wealth.
What follows is a flurry of couplings and breakups, of marriages and affairs, of threats and impossible choices. Allen serves as our impassive but sure-handed guide into this maze of lust, greed, denial and immorality, and it's rather astounding and hopeful to consider what a steady hand he keeps on the rudder- should I make it to age 71, I hope I'm still so attuned to the mad passions of youth. There isn't a superfluous scene or a wasted shot in this film, and although you can see where it's going, you can't help but marvel as it builds up an inexorable head of steam.
Surprising, too, is the utter absence of Woody-isms. There's no Woody stand-in tossing off one-liners. No Bergman homage. No Jewish jokes. It's as if fleeing to London freed Allen from the straightjacket of his own persona and enabled him to focus solely on writing an effective thriller. Because the film is so plot-driven, there's scant character development; characters don't so much change as reveal their true natures. That means less showboat acting- Rhys Meyers and Johanson do fine work, but they aren't given enough meat to build indelible characters. The movie writer with the novelist's skill, who has spent his career bringing believable people and their complex neuroses to the screen, is here writing only in shorthand.
And here's the thing: Allen has been over all this before. This paragraph contains spoilers, so beware. But if you've seen CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, then you've essentially seen MATCH POINT. A married man in a position of wealth and power has a foolish affair with a woman who won't go away quietly when asked. That man is forced to explore the dark corners of his soul and learn what he's really capable of. His actions raise deeply personal issues of faith- is the universe governed by a guiding moral force that judges our choices in life, or is it cold, cruel and utterly amoral? What is a man capable of living with? Is a crime really a crime if you get away with it? Who's really watching, anyway?
So as confident and brash as Allen appears here, in a very real sense he's just recycling his old hits. Perhaps showing a character reading Dostoevsky is his way of acknowledging the connection. But isn't that a little like McCartney writing a new song that cribs a line from Yesterday? I don't want to say Allen is out of ideas, just because MATCH POINT is a variation on a theme. It's a very good film, and it gives me hope that Allen will experience one more creative peak before he retires to that big Catskills resort in the sky. After all, McCartney's latest album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," is pretty damn good- for an old guy.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
