January 19, 2006 Issue
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January 19, 2006 Issue
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Classified Chestnut Hill Local Webmaster Don't Miss an Issue, Tell us what you see or ©2005 Chestnut Hill Local Winner of Three |
‘Point’ fails to ‘Match’ Woody
Allen’s best films
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Woody Allen is the Mike Tyson of filmmakers. Like the erstwhile heavyweight champion, Allen’s greatness of yesteryear has earned him a legion of loyal followers.
Despite a string of clunkers, Allen’s supporters tenaciously hold onto hope. With each new release, these diehard fans, exhibit proprietary fervor, chanting the optimistic mantra, “This will be Woody’s comeback film.”
Match Point does not deliver the definitive knockout that some had hoped for. However, it does restore hope that Allen has not lost the totality of his skills as a writer/director. Indeed, if Match Point weren’t being judged by the standards applied to master filmmakers, it would be regarded as an entirely serviceable, if inconsequential, work.
In his prime, Allen could have made a hilarious parody of a tony English drawing room drama. Instead, Match Point plays more like a Merchant-Ivory collaboration, informed by Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Since the film hails from Allen, I resisted its dramatic aspirations. I kept on waiting for a nebbishy, neurotic Allen analogue to show up and disrupt the film with an intrusion of the auteur’s sardonicism. This never eventuates, and the film is arguably better off for it. At the same time, the absence of Allen’s distinctive signature and its somber tone prove somewhat disconcerting.
Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a social climbing tennis pro, obtains a job as an instructor at an upscale British club. He is befriended by one of the club members, Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode). Before long, Chris is engaged to Tom’s sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Clearly, Chris feels no romantic attraction for the pleasant, albeit plain, Chloe. However, the attachment enables Chris to assume a promising career with his influential father-in-law to be (Brian Cox). When Chris meets Tom’s fiancée, American expatriate Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), sexual sparks instantaneously fly. How will Chris reconcile pragmatic considerations with his lust for Nola? With very effective use of dramatic foreshadowing and misdirection, Match Point explores the consequences of moral transgressions.
Setting Match Point in England has had a salutary effect on Allen’s floundering career. Perhaps, for his next venture, Allen should consider a change of scenery to the remote hinterlands of Outer Mongolia.
*** R (for sexual situations, profanity, and violence) 124 minutes
