REVIEW: Match Point (2005)
Match Point
Rated: R
Runtime: 124 minutes
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.
My Rating: 4 stars.
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The final 40 minutes of Match Point are filled with suspense and terror. The final five minutes are even better.
Tennis pro Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) just moved to London. He meets Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) at a lesson and later meets Tom's sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Chloe falls in love with Chris instantly. Chris is more reluctant, but enjoys the welcoming of the wealthy family. He's invited to weekend getaways and dinners inside their multiple estates.
At one dinner party, he meets Nola (Scarlett Johansson), an American girl who's engaged to Tom. She becomes Chris' obsession. He wants to seduce her and doesn't care that she's engaged. He also wants it to be discrete to not threaten his current situation with Chloe.
The family hates Nola and on one rainy day the Hewett mother berates her acting dreams. Nola storms out and walks outside through the rain to think. Chris notices and follows her. They make love in the rain on a back meadow.
Chris' obsession grows, but he can't leave Chloe, and Nola won't leave Tom. Each are comfortable with the rich lifestyle, so they sacrifice their mutual affection for now.
This film explores moral values, love, death, abortion and fate. Chris is an ex-tennis star, but could never beat the best in the world. He says it's because each time the ball hit the top of the net, it would never roll over. He was unlucky.
The first shot in Match Point is of a tennis ball hitting the tape on the net, hovering in mid-air, and pausing as the narrator explains a ball can go either forward and you win, or back and you lose. It's all determined by fate and luck. We're given this image one more time, with a ring, later in the movie.
Luck is a constant plot point. Chris is lucky to fall into a wealthy family that actually loves him. He is lucky to have a woman who wants to marry him. He's lucky because he excels at a job which his girlfriend's father gave him.
But he isn't in love. Well, not with Chloe. He allows the relationship to grow just so he can have access to the money and life. He marries Chloe and everything seems fine until he discovers Tom and Nola broke up, reigniting his obsession.
He tries to track her down, but she left the country. By chance, or fate, or luck, whichever, he runs into her at an art show and their affair resumes. But he is married to Chloe now.
He still allows the affair to continue and grow for years. He is able to keep it from the naively blind Chloe. It's an easy life until he comes to a crossroads when Nola gives him an ultimatum. Either she tells Chloe about the affair or he does.
So what should Chris do? He contemplates murdering one of them to get out of the jam. What? This is where the film gets really good.
Chris wants Nola, wants the money of the Hewett family and wants his job. He can't have it all.
Writer-director Woody Allen slowly drags it out for us. Match Point a perfect Hitchockian drama. It fits the formula, and the writing is good enough to keep us interested.
It's a little slow in the build-up, but the payoff is exceptional. The twists near the end are nearly unbelievable, but Allen never strays far from reality. We believe the events and it seems each step is precise and premeditated by Chris. He's meticulous, covering everything he thinks he needs to.
We get to look in his conscience near the end in a wonderful devil vs. angel-type moment. We get a peak inside his head. He's a normal person thrust into an extraordinary circumstance and his mind starts to play games with him.
The ending is magnificent and will have you shaking your head. I don't think anyone can accurately predict it.
If you can survive the first hour of this film, which is very slow, the back half is remarkable. I kind of wanted to see how Chris would hold up over time, but leaving it up to the imagination may be this film's lasting effect. How do any of us sleep at night? Four stars.
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