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Match Point
You can always expect something a little unusual in a Woody Allen movie. This one pulls it out just at the right moment and blooms into a dark serve-and-volley when it looked like becoming a mundane foot fault.
Match Point is more than it appears in the trailer - a thought-provoking, dark tale of deception and luck, brought together with Woody Allen's decades of experience. It won't appeal to the younger audience (say under 25), nor will the body-counters get their fix, but for those of us who like a good unpredictable story, it's game, set and match. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: ( for the under 25s) Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: The Scarlett woman lives up to her name but remains covered throughout the immorality. To enjoy this film you should be: over 25 and into dark stories.
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Match Point is the London-based story of rogue tennis pro Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Velvet Goldmine) and his adulterous
affair with rubber-lipped Scarlett Johansson. The movie begins with the rather nicely introduced premise that life is
like tennis, inasmuch as the result of both can be decided by a stroke of fortune, such as the ball clouting the net and
falling one side, resulting in a win, or the other side, resulting in a loss. So it is with life, and we are shown the
similarity very pleasingly in the final half hour. It's just as well, as it was shaping up to be a rather humdrum match
before the darkness fell. The second half changes the tone considerably and turns an ordinary adultery tale into much,
much more - a movie, in fact, that I'll remember for many years to come. I can't tell you why, though, you'll have to take
my word for it - and for once the secrets aren't given away by the trailer. Hurrah!
Scarlett Johansson is a promising talent, though she is on less than top form here. Her first scene, in particular, is
extremely stilted - though I blame the script and direction for that. Both Johansson and Rhys-Meyers jump into slow and
deliberate flirting that seems most incongruous with the setting, and Johansson's particularly hesitant delivery only
makes things worse. Fortunately, that's the only scene that stands out - for the remainder she is much more convincing,
though not quite matching her previous work in
