{"id":361,"date":"2008-04-29T10:41:07","date_gmt":"2008-04-29T07:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/?p=361"},"modified":"2012-10-03T10:43:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T07:43:40","slug":"match-point-woody-allen%e2%80%99s-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/2008\/04\/29\/match-point-woody-allen%e2%80%99s-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Match Point: Woody Allen\u2019s Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Match Point<\/em> (2005)<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Woody Allen<\/p>\n

With Jonathan\u00a0Rhys\u00a0Meyers, Scarlett\u00a0Johansson, Emily\u00a0Mortimer, Matthew\u00a0Goode, Brian\u00a0Cox, Penelope\u00a0Wilton<\/p>\n

Woody Allen left his beloved Manhattan for the first time in his film career and returned to the big screen with Match Point<\/em>, a pleasantly surprising film that received an outstanding reception at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005.<\/p>\n

The story takes place in modern-day London. Irishman Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a young ex-tennis professional, lands a job as a tennis instructor at a very exclusive tennis club, where he meets his first rich student, Tom Hewett (Matthew\u00a0Goode). Discovering their mutual interest in opera, Tom invites Chris to join his family in their private box at the Royal Opera House. Tom\u2019s sister, Chloe (Emily\u00a0Mortimer), is immediately love-struck by the handsome stranger with the modest background. Their relationship and, later, marriage are Chris\u2019s passport to the British upper class, entry gained with Alec and Eleanor Heweett\u2019s (Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton) approval and support. The privileges of wealth, however, are not capable of stopping Chris\u2019s passion for Tom\u2019s beautiful and sexy American actress fianc\u00e9e, Nola Rice (Scarlett\u00a0Johansson). Their secret, complicated and torrid affair will prove fatal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatch Point<\/em> is a drama about love and passion, ambition and crime, about the dominant role of luck and fate in our lives,\u201d Ninos Fenek-Mikelidis, the movie critic and cinema expert, said. \u201cAllen\u2019s script is clearly influenced by Dostoevsky\u2019s Crime and Punishment<\/em>, the case of Scott Peterson (who murdered his pregnant wife, Luci), Patricia Highsmith\u2019s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley<\/em> and by the Greek classical tragedy themes of luck and fate, the cosmic powers which affect human life despite good intentions, hard work or desperate efforts to avoid them.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first glance, in Match Point<\/em> Woody Allen looks into the luck factor, affirming Murphy\u2019s Law. However, the interesting point of the film, the matter that raises questions and dilemmas for the audience through a Hitckockian script plot, is controversial till the end: even though some of us seem to be blessed with an extraordinary amount of good luck, while others suffer misfortune after misfortune, Allen\u2019s heroes are not oblivious of their responsibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the film\u2019s protagonist, Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), does not follow his heart or let opportunities slip through his fingers, and his fate lies within his control, (and) as Nola (Scarlett Johansson) is trapped in the past and her lust and is continually thinking about what went wrong, we start to wonder about ourselves, about our life choices, our real unexpressed character and our deeper, dark, secret aims,\u201d said psychiatrist Stelios Krasanakis. \u201cCan we negotiate our integrity in the name of fulfilling a vain vision? Can we be in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time? Can we turn something bad into good fortune? When should we give up? Where are the limits? Where is justice and God?\u201d<\/p>\n

All those eternal, angst-ridden questions that prey on the audience\u2019s and Allen\u2019s mind – about chance and responsibility, about immolators and victims, about judgment and punishment – are posed through remarkable scenes following a classic film noir narration, which unfolds from the introductory \u201cphilosophical\u201d shot of the tennis court.<\/p>\n

Chris and Nola\u2019s first meeting in the ping-pong room in the Hewett country house is crucial to the story development. When Chris admires Tom\u2019s fianc\u00e9e Nola, and the camera slowly approaches her lascivious lips, the viewer can sense their future, forbidden, torrid affair, which will be realized in their very passionate sex scene in the field during the storm. How many of us could resist such an experience? How many of us haven\u2019t ever vividly fantasized about such an encounter? But where should stop? And who sets the limit? Chance or God? Or do we determine it through our choice?<\/p>\n

The double murder scene (excellently edited by Allen\u2019s collaborator Alisa Lepselter, who combines medium and close-up shots to underline the innocent victim\u2019s ignorance and reveal the decisiveness of the amateur but soulless murderer) is the unexpected black humor, Allen\u2019s sarcastic answer which infuriates and at the same time relieves us, raising our adrenalin through the scene of the slow-motion throwing of the gold ring toward the river, the ring which may become the fatal damning evidence against the murderer. It\u2019s the point where the audience could think that one wrong move could become fateful by a twist of fate.<\/p>\n

Allen\u2019s first collaboration with a British cast and crew has borne fruit: director of photography Remi Adefarasin taps the London weather to create the ideal modern, glowing, but at the same time grey and depressing lighting of the world of money, which demands the sacrifice of emotions and thoughts, a world without the slightest compunction.<\/p>\n

The excellent photography and the plot are supported by the carefully chosen film locations in and around London. Here praise goes to production designer Jim Clay and location manager Sue Quinn, who were Woody Allen\u2019s guides to the British capital. Several London landmarks (the Royal Opera House, the Saatchi Gallery, the Tate Modern, the Sir Norman Foster-designed \u201cGherkin,\u201d the vast Englefield Estate) are the locations of many remarkable scenes, bringing out the characters\u2019 habitual surroundings, upbringing, education and lifestyle.<\/p>\n

The set is completed by costume designer Jill Taylor\u2019s classic simple clothes, which match the characters and their lifestyle, a lifestyle the tragedy of which is underlined by arias (by Verdi, Donizzeti and Bizet) sung by Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, while a song from Andrew Lloyd Weber\u2019s The Woman in White<\/em> makes the audience aware of Allen\u2019s ingenious joking with his heroes\u2019 different backgrounds and tastes.<\/p>\n

Once more, Allen, with the collaboration of casting directors Juliet Taylor, Gail Stevens\u00a0 C.D.G. and Patricia\u00a0Kerrigan\u00a0DiCerto, has made a choice of actors from among the most distinguished European actors: handsome Irishman Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays Chris so wonderfully that the character of the desperate, greedy, lucky fortune-seeker becomes sympathetic. Native New Yorker Scarlett Johansson (the only American actress in the cast) is terrific as the sensual, jealous, demanding and unlucky Nola Rice; she is so sensual that anyone would understand Chris for not being able to break off his passionate extra-marital affair, and understand why he cheats on his sweet but boring rich wife, Chloe Wilton, performed by fantastic Emily Mortimer (a big plus for the film, as she effectuates perfectly the director\u2019s intention to create a tenderfoot character who has no scruple about buying and keeping the man she likes by offering him the ticket to wealth and power). Matthew Goode is the ideal person to play happy-go-lucky, fabulously rich Tom Hewett. Allen was happy, too, to have actors such as veteran Brian Cox (good -hearted Alec Hewett) and Penelope Wilton (drinker and sourpuss Eleanor Hewett), who played brilliantly and realistically the tycoon parents of Emily and Tom and support Chris, understanding their daughter\u2019s need and love.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatch Point<\/em> is a film worth seeing, as it can be interpreted in many ways, according to what we see or we want to see, according to what we are disposed to think and reconsider about the way we see life,\u201d said Tassos Boulmetis, the movie director whose film A Touch of Spice<\/em> was Greece\u2019s official entry in the Academy Awards of 2005. \u201cIn my opinion, Match Point<\/em> is an excellent Woody Allen comeback. Don\u2019t miss it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Match Point (2005) Written and directed by Woody Allen With Jonathan\u00a0Rhys\u00a0Meyers, Scarlett\u00a0Johansson, Emily\u00a0Mortimer, Matthew\u00a0Goode, Brian\u00a0Cox, Penelope\u00a0Wilton Woody Allen left his beloved Manhattan for the first time in his film career and returned to the big screen with Match Point, a pleasantly surprising film that received an outstanding reception at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}