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Match Point (2005)

February 3, 2006 at 8:36 pm · Filed under Movies

Match PointWhat does it take for me to like Theodore Dreiser, born exactly 100 years before me and similarly full of frustratingly unfulfilled potential? Apparently, it takes Woody Allen to film An American Tragedy filtered through the triplequadruple-action lenscharcoal of Chekhov, George Stevens, Patricia Highsmith and Dostoevsky. And yeah, there’s probably some Bergman in there too, this being one of Allen’s more seriouser endeavors.

There’s also a lot of Crimes and Misdemeanors involved, which I like and recently resaw. Crimes is regarded as Allen’s masterwork by people who aren’t me (how can you top Annie Hall?). But I feel like this movie has just as much to say about transgression as C&M, with very little of the to-my-ears repetitive and fluffy rumination. It also takes a different tack to the problem of sin in an amoral world. The power that be is not God or legally-blind rabbi Sam Waterston’s nebulous higher power — is God nebulous because he’s blurry? — but dumb luck.

I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ one-note, callow fancy-lad characters in movies like Velvet Goldmine, The Governess, and Titus (and did you know he just played Elvis on TV?!?), but he’s got an edge and a depth to him — a depthy edge — here that really works. I cannot speak to his work in Bend It Like Beckham but I believe Jessica disliked MP primarily because of the BILB connection.

Jessica hates BILB. Someone is going to have to unbend it, and I’m afraid it might be me.

Scarlett Johansson’s role is a little different for her as a down-on-her-luck actress who temporarily makes good. It was a little hard to buy her character change toward the end of the film, but I appreciated the depthy edge she was trying for.

Did you ever think you’d live to see Woody Allen embracing CGI? By my count, this makes the third movie of his (following Everyone Says I Love You and Deconstructing Harry) that features critical scenes augmented with computer graphics. It kind of makes you wonder what Zelig would be like if he made it today.

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Jessica said,

February 3, 2006 @ 9:05 pm

I hated Match Point. HATED it.

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neil said,

February 4, 2006 @ 1:18 am

jon rhys-meyers deserves a lifetime achievement razzie just for this performance. awful. otherwise this was pretty much the best of the ‘05 films i didn’t like (which was most of them). i’ve decided that this film had a happy ending. what do you think? dostoevsky: if there’s no god then everything is permitted. allen: there’s no god. morality must then be whatever you can get away with (thank luck). jr-s therefore acts morally .. and voila! happy family ending!

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neil said,

February 4, 2006 @ 1:21 am

where was the cgi?

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monoglot said,

February 5, 2006 @ 11:46 pm

Hmm. Do The Player, A Clockwork Orange, and The Silence of the Lambs end happily? It’s the sympathy-for-the-devil effect; we identify with the protagonist by virtue of getting to see things from his viewpoint, and then we’re tied in moral knots when justice doesn’t quite come. I have a weakness for movies of this type.

I don’t think Allen is claiming JR-M behaves morally. He’s just claiming he is lucky, and luck has nothing to do with justice. There is no divine retribution; the monster lives happily ever after.

The CGI is in the beautiful slow-motion shot of the ring being tossed into the Thames, or did you think they just kept throwing rings at the water until one didn’t fall in and bounced perfectly on the rail?

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neil said,

February 6, 2006 @ 2:50 am

haven’t seen the player, but in the other two the protagonists are not basically decent and normal for the first 2/3 of the movie. sometimes good people just get caught up in incestuous relationships which can only be resolved via morally questionable high drama. just ask mia (i think most people are happy for allen’s “happy ending” love life, while despising what he did to get there).

he’s only a “monster” if morality and justice exist, and they don’t/can’t because there’s no god. i realize this is a slightly boring argument, but he pretty much says this in every movie (i think the “sheee-sus! what’s the point of liv-ing?! ..sheee-sus!” routine basically covers it). anyhow, that would be the devil’s advocate position in dostoevsky (grand inquisitor at least), right?

oh, right.

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