Match Point Review (Sunday Business Post)

Match Point
Review: Jonathan McCrea
Principle Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johannson, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox

Woody Allen’s recent British jaunt is more than just a change of location. Match Point is as far away from Allen’s trademark neurotic sexual comedies as London is from New York. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris, an ex-tennis pro who befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) while coaching the exceedingly rich at an exclusive club in London. At one of Tom’s parties, sparks fly when Chris meets femme fatale Nola (Scarlett Johannson) who, surprise surprise, turns out to be Tom’s fiancée. As Chris crosses the inevitable line in the sand, he finds he has to choose between comfortable ‘love’ and bin-everything-else lust.
The underlying theme of the film is the importance of luck in shaping our lives. The opening lines use the example of a tennis ball hitting the top of the net and, depending on whether the ball falls forward or back, you win or lose – match point. Sadly, this game Woody Allen loses.
Who knows, maybe the man is so prolific that he’s actually lapped us and we’ll only recognise the genius of the last few efforts when our grandkids are comparing him to Shakespeare. For now though, even die-hard supporters are starting to flee their posts. Match Point once again centres on the love triangle – a mechanism used so frequently by Allen that he seems to be running out of corners. More disappointing than that though is the absence of Allen’s witty scripting.
Saddled with clunky dialogue, the scenes between Johansson and Rhys-Meyers seem unbearably forced. Pauses between such ridiculous lines as ‘you play an aggressive game’ ring like a spoof rather than drama. The first half of the film is like a tribute to a perfume ad with the impossibly good-looking Rhys-Meyers substituting moody pouting for acting. Even the tagline seems like it was written for Calvin Klein: Passion, Temptation, Obsession. The pace doesn’t fit either. Sixty minutes in you’re wishing you were out, yet there’s still another sixty to go. What films like Broken Flowers and Sideways gained from slowing down the tempo, Match Point manages to lose in straight sets. Rather than reveal humanity it drags.
It’s also easy to see why the bulk of films made in Britain are about the working class – the strawberries and cream set of London don’t lend themselves as well to strong characters. True enough they are duly and dully represented by Mathew Goode, Emily Mortimer et al. The Hewetts are so salad-days it’s clear Woody hasn’t spent much time slapping backs with the aristocracy. In fact from the cast, Johannson is the only one who rides it out delivering a credible performance; the rest are forgettable.
There is some saving grace though. After a good hour or so of faffing about getting the two leads together, a Hitchcockian murder mystery falls out of the box like a set of lost instructions. At last the film picks up the threads and starts to move, but it’s too little too late. Despite the clever twist to tie the ends together, the middle had already fallen out.

Match Point opens Thursdays 5th January