Match point review

            Match point

Directed by Woody Allen

           

Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox, Matthew Goode, James Nesbitt, Ewen Bremner.

Review by Zulfi – 4/5

            In ‘Match Point’, Woody Allen again toys with one of his often played out favorite story point, that of a commoner facing the situation of killing a fellow human and dealing with it. Though it comes very late, the movie has a somber and macabre mood from the start which explains many things regarding it. For one the characters and other, common human emotions, which you could never possibly avoid.

            Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a young tennis coach at a London club. He has a very humble background and is completely in contrast with the rich and aristocratic patrons, who visit the club. He is befriended by Tom Hewett (Mathew Goode), one of those wealthy millionaires and also his sport student, but of the same age. Accepting Tom’s offer of attending an opera, he meets Tom’s family. But it is Tom’s sister Chloe, who is clearly smitten by this young tennis coach. As the days proceed, Chris and Chloe court, but also double date with Tom and his American fiancée, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). She is an aspiring actress, who doesn’t score well with Tom’s mother. But she is a free spirit, which not only attracts the attention of her wealthy fiancé, Tom, but also that of Chris. The latter likes her debonair attitude and pursues her secretively. After a sharp rebuke from Tom’s mother, who disapproves of her profession, she walks out of the estate, where they are holidaying and has sex with Chris, who follows her. She dismisses this instant act later while Chris wants more of it. But he ends up marrying Chloe, while Tom breaks up with Nola.

            Just after a brief gap of time, when Chris is being treated as the favorite son in law of the wealthy family, given position and control by Chloe’s dad in the board of the company, he again meets Nola accidentally. He pursues her strictly this time and starts a secretive affair, which results in Nola ending up pregnant and falling deeply for Chris. On the other hand, Chloe has pregnancy woes and persuades Chris to be more attentive to getting her pregnant, which proves to be hard work with medical attention being required. However the initial brush of fascination Chris develops for Nola is replaced by fear of his affair becoming public. He balks on Nola’s insistence of marriage with her and can’t divorce his wife as he has a good and comfortable life with her. He resorts to the unthinkable with his father in law’s shotgun as the weapon and staging out a burglary to mask the murder of his lover.

           

            But woody Allen’s main theme for this movie is based on luck. There is a short prologue at the start which states how fortune plays a bigger role in life. The important aspect of how it plays against all the odds is depicted in the last part of the movie, but looking closely you could see how Chris is the son of fortune from the start.

            He has given up pro-tennis to come coach for an up-market crowd in London. Though it may look a poor career choice, his fortune guides him to become the son-in-law of a very affluent family. He even gets the best for his lust in terms of his mistress. And even at the end, when he settles the matters in the dirtiest of fashions, luck stands by the corner to let him off through a dangerous predicament. But essentially if one glances through the plot, Chris is a bad egg. Though at the start he looks the blue eyed boy with honest of minds, he resorts to the status of a social climber, which he does so doggedly and latches onto his creature comforts so vehemently that he doesn’t think twice taking the life of Nola Rice, with whom he had the deepest of feelings. He is the one who pursues her even when she discourages him. He knows how he even at one stage reveres her like a goddess, but when the matter of his existence arises, he takes the drastic step with a little thought.

Allen’s screenplay runs through the career formative years of the principal characters during which he undulates the psychology of the individuals. At the start, it’s all about looks, lust and wealth. But when the years pass, look how the mindsets change. Tom is worn out of Nola’s beauty and passion. Chris aspires for what he doesn’t have and when he does, he wants to get rid of it. He goes for Chloe as a career step and then ignores her for the other woman. But then his ignorance is subtle because he doesn’t want any hitches in his upscale life. Nola has a way with her guiles at the start but she soon puts them away as she wants a stable ground after having been fed up with her failing professional life.

Allen’s genius plot points come up frequently like when Chris weary of Nola’s proposal to marriage, welcomes the tour his in-laws plan for him and his wife. He promises Nola that he will talk about divorce matter (which he won’t) with his wife after the trip. But when he comes to know that the trip is cancelled, he looks at the silver lining that he can be rid of Nola for a few days making her think he is out there travelling. And for the first time, he realizes that he wants to break up with his mistress at any cost. Soon, he consolidates his resolution and plans to silence her once and for all.

But the way Allen handles the murder is the closest to the clinical detailing he had ever done in his movies. Always the murder is dealt in a psychological way rather than a task. But here, he comes closest to dealing it as the latter. Chris stages a burglary in the house of an old, senile lady in the flat beside Nola’s. He kills the innocent old woman stealing her jewelry but waits outside the flat later waiting for Nola to exit the elevator and shoots her in the head as though killing a person who has come amidst his chore. And the police interrogation that follows is done so subtly and with no pomp, even while the cop-duo discuss the vital points of the case. Allen’s way of disclosing of Chris’s ghosts secret to the Scotland yard men is done with script in the form of revelation rather than elaboration, but then again it comes to nothing when the very evidence Chris wants to eliminate works for him.

The pictorial depiction of chance at the start is shown by a tennis ball hitting the top of the net and hovers at that point with a tendency to fall on any side of the court. He uses this pictorially in a vital shot of the movie, which proves to be Chris’s redeeming point. And this probably is the crème de la crème of the movie. Right when everything seems to go against him, fortune steals over him and protects him from doom.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers has a boyish charm at the start with his eyes working for him more than required. They show his vulnerability to passion. They also seem have a deep secret which looks intriguing for both the females, but the irony is that both don’t really know what brews behind those glassy eyes. He cheats his wife and plays with the emotions of his mistress. His calm demenour makes his in-laws get fascinated by him. Chloe’s family however is the perfect canvass which highlights the nature and emotions of Chris. They play like the indifferent background making us clearly aware of the protagonists’ plans and feelings. Mathew Goode is recklessly handsome and is a genial free soul, while Chloe’s parents are obsessed with their daughter. However Chloe does have an inkling of a peek into the soul of her husband before being convincingly deceived by him. That small suspicion is definitely required to make the drama more probable. Emily Mortimer looks so gentle and caring, which again contrasts with Chris helping him look a bit on the darker side even before he stages the murder. But Scarlette Johannson shines as Nola Rice with her guiles perfect for the role and they work so well, which in movies of her later years had been used so gratuitously. She also looks excellent as the desperate woman, who needs an identity of a married woman in the society.

The operatic background score works the sinister tone for the movie as there is always a sense of foreshadowing of uneasiness closely following the initial scenes. The characters look a little uncomfortable with the way they age. Though they feel the fresh vintage of youth at the start, when they proceed in life there is that universal dread of aging, which makes them resort to various types of steps. Woody Allen plays this psychology so well, which probably adds to the stamp of its own to this movie. He is accurate in assessing the characters and infusing a style of unfolding of the plot, which looks so lucid and so confident in the working. But it’s the fears where he scores so damn well. The scene where Chris shoots his lover after she exits the elevator happens in a fraction of seconds. Allen cleverly avoids the expressions of the two characters as he completes the scene within a single second. This is like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver shot where Fickle speaks with Betsy on the phone post his date. Both the directors feel the queasiness of depicting the embarrassment the protagonists face in their respective situations. This feeling exudes out into the audience and that’s where the movie scores the winning point.