Match Point Review

(Please forgive any mistakes with cast names as I was too awestuck to take notes during the credits in the Grand Lumiere Theater and IMDB still has yet to be updated with full cast and credits.)

After suffering through Anything Else and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, I really began to worry that Woody Allen had somehow lost his ability to write and direct. Luckily, his most recent work, Match Point, has restored my faith in Allen’s offbeat cinema. Woody Allen is Back!

Allen has written yet another wonderful film about two couples struggling with relationships and the artistic world around them. While there’s certainly no new territory explored in Match Point, audiences of all walks will most certainly enjoy Allen’s latest offering.

The film opened Thursday, June 12th to an astounding reaction from the crowd at the Cannes Film Festival and rightfully so. It’s an enjoyable comedy that will be adventurous as well as familiar to Allen fans. Woody Allen follows the structure of the many romantic comedies of his past, while exploring the much different setting of London, England.

Opening with the image of a tennis ball flying back and forth over the net, followed by a voice over describing the precise moment when tennis ball hits the top of the net, there is an exact second in which the ball can fall to one side of the net or the other, causing you the player to either win or lose. Waiting for the inevitable dose of fatalism this analogy provides is somewhat predicable but thoroughly enjoyable.

What follows the analogous voice over is very typical Woody Allen. The Woody Allen that hasn’t been present for many years. He’s not breaking new ground but he’s most certainly returning to familiar territory in terms of narrative and aesthetics. This film is very much in the same vein with his previous works, Manhattan, Annie Hall, and Deconstructing Harry.

Minutes into the film, we discover that the film subjects are two couples struggling to maintain normal relationships. The film waste little time establishing the main characters and their inter-relationships.

The men, as usual in Allen’s films, are immoral and struggle to remain faithful. Woody Allen, just as in previous films, creates a world for his characters in which love can happen with a passing moment, even if that passing moment just happens to be in the middle of a current relationship. His characters are often so impassioned that it’s easy to fall head over heals for the possibility of true love, even at the risk of destroying normal, function relationships.

Surprisingly, Allen himself is not present in the field at this time choose to take a back seat to some younger counterparts. This works well as the film takes place in London and the cast is well rounded to suit this drastic change for Allen.

Alex Armstrong plays Chris, a soon to be married ex tennis pro who has recently been given a prestigious job by his future father in law. Alex Armstrong does a brilliant job here. He’s isn’t too much of a slim ball for the audience to dislike but he’s just sincere enough that we’re willing to follow him on his journey until the very end. He’s incredibly charming and believable in every frame.

Scarlet Johanson dominants the screen with each sequence she’s in. I had never pictured her as the beautiful yet dangerous femme fatal but she pulls off the performance with great ease. She brilliantly manages to balance both sensuality and aggression in her love obsessed aspiring actress. Quite simply, she’s a knockout.

The rest of the cast is rounded out with Brian Cox, Morne Botes, Matthew Goode, Rose Keegan, Emily Mortimer, and others. Here the supporting cast keeps this complex story from spiraling out of control. All are family members or loved ones and each does a wonderful job at keeping the narrative controlled all while rounding out the story further.

While there are moments of absurdness and unoriginality, such as a very predictable classical Hollywood style kiss in the rain, they are still quite powerful and enjoyable. It seems that Woody Allen has come to an age where he has understood what his greatest assets are and has taken full advantage of them once again. One can only hope he continues to explore this world of his and leave us with as much as possible.

Yes, it’s true. Match Point is not new or exceptional. However, it’s a good, solid Woody Allen film with wonderful acting and entertaining story from beginning to end. That is a far cry from a great deal of films coming out at this time.

Fans of new and old Woody Allen work will enjoy even moment in this film and will leave the theater looking forward to his next film. The story here is familiar yet very adventurous in that there’s a great deal of surprise in store for fans simply expecting yet another romantic comedy about artistic, intellectual types struggling to maintain relationships in a hustling –bustling city. You, my friends, most certainly have an enjoyable surprise or two in this film.

This film may not create and new Woody Allen fans but it would be a wonderful introduction into the world of Allen’s intellectual, artistic, and loved obsessed characters.

- Christopher Childs
Originally appeared on Into the Evening Rush.