REVIEWED - MATCH POINT: AFTER his welcome return to form last year with Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen is back at the top of his game with Match Point, arguably the most satisfying and dramatically arresting film in his prolific career since Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), with which the new movie shares several moral and thematic concerns.
That reference point is a cue that Allen is in serious mood here, and he is unusually sparing with his one-liners. Match Point, in fact, breaks the Allen mould in many respects. It's his first film to run for over two hours. It takes place far from his familiar Manhattan milieu, being set entirely in London and the surrounding countryside. Verdi and Donizetti replace Allen favourites Gershwin and Porter on the soundtrack. And not only does Allen stay behind the camera, there isn't a Woody surrogate in sight, although the pivotal character, Chris Wilton, gets saddled with doubts and guilt.
In his most persuasive performance to date, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is supremely assured and charismatic as Wilton, a handsome, suavely ambitious young Irishman in London. A former tennis professional, he is irresistibly drawn into the affluent lifestyle of a very wealthy English family and becomes emotionally involved with their daughter (Emily Mortimer). Then he risks everything when he embarks on a reckless secret affair with a struggling American actress, played by Scarlett Johansson.
The title of the movie is taken from the tennis term for the final point needed to win a match, and a recurring theme is how much life can depend on luck and being in the right or the wrong place at a particular time, and how scary that realisation can be. Chris Wilton appears to have luck in spades, which is useful given that he, like the social climber played by Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley, has several serious moral flaws to conceal.
Clearly refreshed by shooting in new surroundings, Allen propels the tangled proceedings at a vigorous rhythm, pausing along to way to turn a quizzical, clearly fascinated eye on English upper-middle-class lifestyles. As he has so often done for Manhattan, his film delivers a valentine to London and its cultural and tourism landmarks such as the Royal Opera House, Tate Modern, the Royal Court Theatre, Covent Garden and the London Eye.
Allen's cast is exemplary, from veterans Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton to rising talents Mortimer and Matthew Goode, in a movie that's a rich pleasure to experience and savour from start to finish, and which plays out with all the accumulating tension of a finely honed thriller. Even those who had sworn off Allen's traditional templates may be reconverted by his 39th film as a director in 40 years. The good news is that he has finished shooting yet another: Scoop, again set in London, in which he co-stars with Johansson.
