+ another review by Cynthia Fuchs
Comeback Talk
The comeback talk that accompanies Woody Allen's Match Point can be attributed to a number of small favors. First, it is drama, following a hit-and-miss run of films full of creaky jokes (Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, and Anything Else). The once-perennial whines that Allen should return to making full-fledged comedies have been silenced for what is certain to be an extended period, possibly stretching as long as five or six months.
Not only is Match Point a thriller, it also doesn't star Woody Allen. Neither does it star a talented young actor "doing" Woody's shtick, but rather the deeply un-Woody Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Chris, a social-climbing Irish tennis pro in modern London. What's more, neither of the two women who come into Chris's life -- sweet Brit Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and blunt American Nola (Scarlett Johansson) -- act much like Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton.
Here's the topper: characters in Match Point use cell phones. I can think of no other filmmaker who could turn this completely perfunctory detail into an item in his "plus" column, but neither can I think of one who has carved out such a specific cultural milieu for himself, regardless of genre. The rampant cell phone use indicates that Allen's characters are starting to inhabit the modern world. Yes, the rumors are true: Match Point is Allen's best, toughest, smartest movie in at least five years, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Woody Allen apologist.
Actually, it's as a Woody Allen apologist that I must voice some reservations. For all of its breakthroughs, Match Point shows some usual shortcomings. Working against Match Point's effectiveness as a thriller -- a subtle, slow-building, small thriller -- is its running time. Allen was once a reliable provider of 90-minute films, but Match Point sacrifices some tautness during its 125 minutes, which may be a career record.
In this time, the film repeats a typical Allen storyline concerning the touchy mechanics of infidelity. The earlier scenes in which we can see Chris quietly making poor choices are far more compelling than later sequences involving repeated and unwanted phone calls from a jilted lover that come at particularly awkward times. It's as if the familiarity of this material (which he dwelled on most recently in 2003's Anything Else) takes Allen on a detour into his comfort zone.
The film does recover its crispness for a final rally. I can't remember the last Allen movie where I spent the last act wondering what would happen next. His plot twists are playful, if not exactly comedic, which more than makes up for occasional passages of uncharacteristically stiff dialogue, still finding its shape with the overt wisecracks cut out. Making a film that is at least indirectly about the British class system helps smooth things over. The stuffiness actually seems "realistic" (even if it begins with the fact that, as in so many Allen films, none of the characters seems aware of music made in the last 50 or 60 years).
Just as Chris strikes an uneasy, unofficial bargain to ascend into the elite British family, Match Point marks an odd deal between Allen and his critics. Some of his previous forays into drama have met with some of his most scathing reviews. But Match Point isn't begging for love. Rather, it evokes a paradox: a confident, distinctive filmmaker questioning himself.
— 4 January 2006
