Match Point
Review by Clint Morris
The projectionist might want to lock his
door
whilst Match Point is in-season. Chances
are patrons in
the cinema below are going to be hammering on it, desperate to let him
know that he has run the correct credits for the film - typical Woody
Allen with a faint score and simplistic credit sequence - but slipped
the wrong first reel on proceeding it.
Of course, if
you’ve heard anything about the movie you’d know that those
people have just left the comfort of their seat for no reason. The film
on hand is as dissimilar from any other Woody Allen film - including
the relocation from Manhattan to London, the fact that the bespectacled
directing vet isn’t in the film, and the much more grave theme -
as possible, and like a rain cloud at the tail end of a hot summer,
it’s a welcome change.
It doesn’t really matter if
you love Woody Allen films, or hate Woody Allen films, because Match
Point is only likely to disinterest those who
despise rousing performances, gripping storylines and all-too-real
scenarios (or perhaps, a man/woman whose currently enjoying an
extra-marital affair, though this should be enough for that person to
end it). The fact that it’s an Allen film makes no difference,
except perhaps in the fact that those who normally don’t go for
the eccentric filmmakers movies won’t be able to hold their
tongue on how great a job he’s done here. It truly is, one of the
man’s finest moments.
Match Point follows a
storyline that we’ve all seen before - man starts cheating on
fiancée/soon wife behind his back, everything gets gravely
serious and boom, lives are destroyed - but never has the stencil been
treated so adroitly or with such class. Films like Zandalee
or Unfaithful may have treaded
similar territory, but where some of the elements just weren’t in
place for those films, everything is interlocked perfectly here. The
script, the characters, the believability, the chemistry between
supposed lovers, the pay-off…it’s all rather admirable.
Jonathan
Rhys-Meyers (most recently seen in the TV mini-series Elvis,
in the title role) gives, what could be, the best
performance of his career as the seriously conflicted and easily-swayed
Chris, whose fascination with struggling American actress Nola (a
beautiful and very compelling Scarlett Johansson), is taken to the
limits.
As Chris’s fiancée (and later wife) Chloe,
Emily Mortimer is more than simply apt, unleashing an understated but
well-polished turn. Backed-up by a superb Matthew Goode (as
Chloe’s brother, Tom) and the always-dependable Brian Cox (as the
amiable father-in-law), Allen’s again proved he knows how to
indeed cast a movie.
What’s great about Match
Point is that, despite it’s similarities to other films,
it does have a surprising sting in its tail. Coupled with the Allen
touch, and the above said turns, and it’s game, set and match.
4 out of 5
Match
Point
Australian release: 2nd
March, 2006.
Cast: Brian
Cox, Matthew Goode, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Jonathan Rhys
Meyers, Penelope Wilton
Director: Woody Allen.
Website:
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here.
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