a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
•
Written and directed by Woody Allen; director of photography, Remi Adefarasin; edited by Alisa Lepselter; production designer, Jim Clay; produced by Letty Aronson, Gareth Wiley and Lucy Darwin; released by DreamWorks Pictures.
Running time: 124 minutes.
STARRING: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Chris Wilton), Scarlett Johansson (Nola Rice), Emily Mortimer (Chloe Wilton), Matthew Goode (Tom Hewett), Brian Cox (Alec Hewett) and Penelope Wilton (Eleanor Hewett).
•
Match Point, the latest film from the prolific Woody Allen, is receiving a great deal of applause from mainstream critics, who herald it as a “return to form” after a career slump that began all the way back in 1995 with Mighty Aphrodite.
And it is noteworthy in that Allen has indeed made a movie quite distinct from his recent works… in fact, it’s distinct from all of his previous works. Match Point lacks the relentless witticisms of his comedies. It’s set in London rather than New York. And it features a cast of actors from “across the pond” including Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, and Brian Cox, with America represented by Scarlett Johansson. Remarkably, none of these characters walks, talks, or sounds like Woody Allen.
But thematically, the film returns us to the familiar amorality of Allen’s recent releases, even as it retools the dark resolution of Crimes and Misdemeanors so that its hero, instead of losing his grasp on morality, never even had a hold on one in the first place.
The film begins with a monologue from the central character, Chris Wilton (Myers), about how our lives are ruled by chance. “The man who said ‘I’d rather be lucky than good’ saw deeply into life,” he flatly states. “”People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It’s scary to think so much is out of one’s control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward and you win … or maybe it doesn’t, and you lose.” What follows is a tale meant to demonstrate that point.
We follow Irishman Chris, a former tennis pro working as a trainer in London who is looking for a new adventure and willing to manipulate matters to indulge his impulses. He’ll remind moviegoers of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, or the seducer played by John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons, and Myers gives him the same cold-hearted, predatory demeanor.
We follow his devious exploits as he abandons tennis in order to marry one woman, Chloe (Mortimer), for her family’s money. But he does not hesitate to respond to a surge of lust when he meets Nola (Johansson), an American actress who also happens to be the fiance of his brother-in-law-to-be, Tom (Goode).
Lies are heaped upon lies, and Chloe moans about failing to get pregnant, while Nola grows into an obsession that looks likely to reach Fatal Attraction levels. Clearly we’re headed for a nasty disaster. But few viewers will guess, unless they’ve read spoiler-ish reviews, just where this is all headed.
Will Chris pay for his sins? Allen does let us witness the last gasps of Chris’s conscience, and as his wickedness escalates, there comes a moment where he seems to be writhing in his own soul’s death throes. But ultimately, these consequences seem fleeting and insignificant. There’s even a moment where ghosts from his past rise up to haunt him, but he turns his back on them and walks away, and one doubts he’ll ever see them again.
Allen concludes with a baffling send-off that will have viewers discussing whether or not Chris is deceiving himself, or if our lives are indeed just a game of chance. This culminates in a freeze-frame shot that was cleverly forecast by the opening of the film, and it stands as one of Allen’s career masterstrokes, even as it represents the most despairing moment in all of his storytelling.
Mainstream critics seem giddy with Allen’s anarchic perspective. The New York Times‘ critic writes, “The gloom of random, meaningless existence has rarely been so much fun, and Mr. Allen’s bite has never been so sharp, or so deep. A movie this good is no laughing matter.” Most Christian film critics find it empty, deceptive, and worse. Some of them seem eager to write it off.
I fall somewhere between the two. Yes, it’s deeply disturbing. But we should also note that the strong arguments provoked by the film show that Allen is still capable of crafting works of art that challenge and inspire. There are benefits to studying a thing well made, and Allen’s technique is worthy of praise. Further, examination and discussion of work as complex and impassioned as Match Point can be productive, provided viewers are discerning, conscientious, and willing to test Allen’s propositions rather than merely consuming them.
It never ceases to fascinate me how filmmakers who don’t believe in order or design can only communicate their perspectives through order and design, aspects that directly contradict their assumptions and encourage us to go on interpreting the meaning of life.
Personally, I found Match Point engaging from beginning to end. The performances in the film are praiseworthy: newcomer Matthew Good lives up to his name, Myers is perfectly cast, Mortimer is suitably sympathetic (even if the script paints her as remarkably naive), and Johansson continues to stake her claim as one of America’s most formidable actresses. The cinematography is elegant and engaging. It is impressive on almost every technical level. And yet, the script could have used another revision–the film’s most obvious weakness is Allen’s failure to develop these characters into fully convincing, three-dimensional people. They seem like pawns in his attempt to prove something. (Bryan Cox, for example, plays a successful businessman whose office, home, and conversation seem curiously devoid of any evidence that he actually does real business of any kind.)
But ultimately, I find Allen guilty of glamorizing the sin while he makes the path of the righteous man look boring, cold, and dissatisfying. Aesthetically, the real pleasure of the film is Johansson, and Allen choreographs erotic love scenes that are shocking for those of us who have followed his career–he’s never turned up the heat like this before. By comparison, he portrays marriage as he always has… as a cold, confining, suffocating existence that restrains the husband from having any adventure or excitement or satisfaction.
It’s an admirably crafted picture that disturbs us because it should. And it challenges our belief in right and wrong by showing us a character who tries to live outside of a moral framework. Thus, it provokes us to consider many important questions about ethics and conscience. And I’d even go so far as to say that Allen, while seeming to proclaim that there is no justice, no God watching over us and dealing out the wages of sin, there is a suggestion that Chris may just be fooling himself. For is he happy in the end? Sure, he enjoys the thrills of his crimes. But does his life seem fulfilling? Is he becoming a better person, a man of integrity, or a monster? Did he get what he needed, or just what he wanted?
Here’s another question I cannot escape as I watch this film: If Allen sees that Chris ends up an empty shell of a man, for all of his criminal exploits, then why does he insist on telling reporters that “luck” is all he really believes in? If Chris’s philosophy is Allen’s philosophy, then Allen is basically admitting that his own worldview has led him to an abyss.
Whatever Woody Allen thinks about Chris’s behavior, I suspect that many viewers will find such a worldview to be truly destructive, and counterproductive to a meaningful life. Chris is all about the fleeting pleasures of happiness, but the more he feeds his base appetites, the more he loses the opportunity to experience true joy. He’s bound for a lonely existence.