Match Point

Match Point
Directed by	Woody Allen
Produced by	Letty Aronson Gareth Wiley Lucy Darwin
Written by	Woody Allen
Starring	Jonathan Rhys Meyers Scarlett Johansson Emily Mortimer Matthew Goode Brian Cox Penelope Wilton Ewen Bremner James Nesbitt Rupert Penry-Jones
Cinematography	Remi Adefarasin, OBE, BSC
Editing by	Alisa Lepselter
Studio	BBC Films Thema Production SA
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures Icon Productions
Release date(s)	12 May 2005 (2005-05-12) (Cannes) 6 January 2006 (2006-01-06) (United Kingdom)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$85,306,374

Match Point is a 2005 dramatic thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton. Rhys Meyers' character marries into a wealthy family, but his social position is threatened by an affair and the subsequent pregnancy of his brother in law's ex-girlfriend, played by Johansson.

The film treats themes of morality, greed, and the roles of lust, money, and luck in life, leading many to compare it to Allen's earlier film, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). It was produced and filmed in London after Allen had difficulty finding financial support for the film in New York. The agreement obliged him to make it there using a cast and crew the majority of whom were from the United Kingdom. Allen quickly re-wrote the script, which was originally set in New York, for an English setting.

Critics in the United States tended to enjoy film and its English setting and welcomed it as a return to form for Allen. Reviewers from the United Kingdom in constrast treated Match Point less favourably, and found fault with the locations and especially the idiom of the dialogue. Allen was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Production

The script was originally set in The Hamptons, a wealthy enclave in New York, but transferred to London when Allen found financing for the film there. The film was partly funded by BBC Films, which required that he make the film in the UK with largely local cast and crew. Allen explained that he is allowed "the same kind of creative liberal attitude that I'm used to" in London. He complained that the American studio system is strong again, and not interested in making small films, "They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500m." A further change was required when Kate Winslet, who had been supposed to play the part of Nola Rice, resigned a week before filming was scheduled to begin. Scarlett Johansson was offered the part, and accepted, but the character had to be re-written as an American. According to Allen, "It was not a problem...It took about an hour."

Filming took place in London in the summer of 2004 over a seven week schedule. Some of the city's landmarks, such as Tate Modern, Norman Foster's "Gherkin" building at 30 St Mary Axe, Richard Rogers' Lloyd's building, the Royal Opera House, the Palace of Westminster, Blackfriars Bridge, and Cambridge Circus form a backdrop to the film. The tennis club scenes were filmed at the Queen's Club. One of the University of Westminster's Marylebone campus lecture theatres was also used. UK-based graffiti artist Banksy's "girl with balloon" appears briefly in the film. Parliament View at Lambeth Bridge was used for interiors of Chris and Chloe's apartment.

Synopsis

Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a recently retired tennis professional, is taken on as an instructor at an upmarket club in London. He strikes up a friendship with a wealthy pupil, Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), after discovering their common affinity for opera. Tom's older sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), is smitten with Chris and the two begin dating. During a family gathering, Chris meets Tom's fiancée, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), and they are instantly attracted to each other. Tom's mother Eleanor (Penelope Wilton) clearly does not approve of her son's relationship with a struggling American actress, a source of tension. Chloe encourages her father to give Chris a job as an executive in one of his companies; Chris begins to be accepted into the family, and marriage is discussed.

During a storm, Chris follows Nola outside and confesses his feelings for her, and they passionately kiss in a wheat-field. Feeling guilty, Nola treats this as an accident; Chris, however, wants an ongoing clandestine relationship. Chris and Chloë marry, but Tom ends his relationship with Nola.

Cholë, to her distress, does not become pregnant immediately. Chris vainly tries to track down Nola, but meets her by chance some time later at the Tate Modern. He discreetly asks for her number and they begin an affair. Whilst Chris is spending time with his wife's family, Nola calls to inform him that she is pregnant. Panicked, Chris asks her to get an abortion, but she refuses, saying that she wants to raise the child with him. Chris's strange behaviour makes Chloe suspect he is having an affair, which he denies. Nola urges Chris to divorce his wife, and he feels trapped and finds himself lying to Chloe as well as Nola. Nola confronts him at his office, and he just escapes public detection.

Soon after, Chris takes a shotgun from his father-in-law's home and carries it to his office in a tennis bag. On leaving, he calls Nola on her mobile to tell her he has good news for her. He goes to Nola's building and gains entry the apartment of her neighbour, Mrs. Eastby (Margaret Tyzack). He shoots and kills her, then stages a burglary by ransacking the room and stealing some jewellery and drugs. As Nola returns he shoots her in the stairwell. He then takes a taxi to the theatre to watch a musical with Chloe. Scotland Yard investigates the crime and conclude it was committed by a drug addict stealing money. The following day, the murder is in the news. Chris returns the shotgun and he and Chloe announce her pregnancy.

Detective Mike Banner (James Nesbitt) invites Chris for an interview in relation to the murder. Beforehand, Chris throws Mrs. Eastby's jewellery and drugs into the river, but by chance her ring bounces on the railing and falls to the pavement. At the police station, Chris denies knowing Nola, but Banner surprises him with her diary, in which he features extensively. He confesses his affair to Banner but denies any link to the murder, and appeals to the detectives not to involve him any more in their investigation, as news of the affair may well end his marriage just as he and his wife are expecting a baby.

Late one night Chris sees apparitions of Nola and Mrs. Eastby, who tell him to be ready for the consequences of his actions; he replies that his crimes, though wrong, had been "necessary", and that he is able to suppress his guilt. At the same time, Banner dreams that Chris committed the murders. His theory is discredited by his partner (Ewen Bremner), who informs him that a drug peddler found murdered on the streets had Mrs. Eastby's ring in his pocket. The film ends with Chloe giving birth to a baby boy named Terrence, and his uncle blessing him not with goodness but luck.

Themes

Woody Allen in New York in 2006. Match Point, his 36th film, reprises themes that he had treated before, there were notable similarities with Crimes and Misdemeanours

The film's opening interior monologue from Wilton introduces its themes of chance and fate, which he characterises as simple luck, which to him is all-important. The sequence establishes the protagonist as an introvert, a man who mediates his experience of the world through deliberation, and positions the film's subjective perspective through his narrative eyes. Charalampos Goyios argued that this hero, as an opera lover, maintains a sense of distance from the outer world and that ramifications therein pale in comparison to the purity of interior experience. The film is a debate with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which Wilton is seen reading early on, identifying him with the anti-hero Raskolnikov. That character is a brooding loner who kills an old woman to prove that he is a superior being, but is racked by guilt and eventually admits all to a dogged sleuth, and he is finally redeemed by punishment, the love of a poor girl, and the discovery of God. Wilton is a brooding loner who kills a poor girl who loves him because he considers his interests superior to those around him, knows little guilt, and avoids detection through luck. Allen signals his intentions with more superficial similarities: both killers attempt to cover their crime by faking a robbery, two unexpected painters on the stairs nearly throw both killers' plans into disarray, both sleuths play cat and mouse with their respective killers. Allen argues, unlike Dostoevsky, that there is neither God, punishment, nor love to provide redemption.

Allen revisits some of the themes he had explored in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), such as the existence of justice in the universe. Both films feature a murder of an unwanted mistress "offer a depressing view on fate, fidelity, and the nature of man". That film’s protagonist, Judah Rosenthal, is an affluent member of the upper-middle class having an extramarital affair. After he threatens to break the affair off, his mistress blackmails him and threatens to go to his wife. Soon, Rosenthal decides to murder his mistress but is distressed at the evil of the killing. Philip French compared the two films' plots and themes in The Observer, and characterised Match Point's as a "clever twist on the themes of chance and fate".

Money is an important motivator for the characters: both Wilton and Nola come from modest backgrounds and wish to enter the Hewett family using their sex appeal. That family secure position is symbolised by their large country estate, and early on in their relationships both prospective spouses are supported by Mr Hewett, Wilton with a position on "one of his companies" and Nola reports to being "swept off her feet" by Hewett's attention and presents. Roger Ebert posed the film's underlying question as "To what degree are we prepared to set aside our moral qualms in order to indulge in greed and selfishness?" Wilton is facing a choice between greed and lust, but his sweet wife, Chloë, herself has no qualms about having her father essentially "buy" her husband for her.

Jean-Baptiste Morain, writing in Les Inrockuptibles, characterised the film as a political one in that the strong do not accept their own weakness and have no qualms about perpetuating an injustice to defend their interests. This wider political sense is, he argued, accentuated by its English setting where class differences are more marked than in the USA. The film pits passion and the dream of happiness against ambition and arrivisme, resolving the dispute with a pitiless blow that disallows all chance of justice.

Musical accompaniment

The film's soundtrack consists almost entirely of pre-World War I 78 rpm recordings of opera arias sung by Enrico Caruso, an Italian tenor. This bold use, despite his variety of musical styles, constitutes a first for Allen. Heretofore, opera has been used before in his work as an indicator of social class, such as in Husbands and Wives (1992). In Match Point the arias and opera extracts make an ironic commentary on the actions of the characters and sometimes foreshadow developments in the movie's narrative. Furthermore, given Wilton's status as an introvert and Opera enthusiast himself, the accompaniment emphasises his detachment from his crime.

The ten minute murder scene which forms the film's climax is scored with almost the whole of the Act II duet between Othello and Iago from Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello. This in an untypical scoring for a film since Verdi's piece it is not a song, or rather an aria, but a dramatic dialogue in which the words are as important as the music. Thus the astute spectator will be presented with two dramatic narratives to follow; Allen is not respecting traditional conventions of cinematic accompaniment since the score's events does not match the story unfolding onscreen.

Arias and extracts include work by Giuseppe Verdi (in particular Macbeth, La Traviata, Il Trovatore and Rigoletto), Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles, and Antônio Carlos Gomes's Salvatore Rosa sung by Caruso. The romanza Una furtiva lagrima from L'elisir d'amore is featured repeatedly, including during the opening credits. The Caruso arias are supplemented by diegetic music from contemporary performances which the characters attend over the course of the film. There are scenes at the Royal Opera House and elsewhere performed by opera singers ("La Traviata" performed by Janis Kelly and Alan Oke, "Rigoletto" performed by Mary Hegarty), accompanied by a piano]] (performed by Tim Lole).

Reception

Allen has said that Match Point, is one of his few "A-films", and even “arguably may be the best film that I’ve made. This is strictly accidental, it just happened to come out right. You know, I try to make them all good, but some come out and some don’t. With this one everything seemed to come out right. The actors fell in, the photography fell in and the story clicked. I caught a lot of breaks!” The film was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Match Point broke a streak of box office flops for Allen: it earned $85,306,374 worldwide, of which $23,151,529 was in its North American run. Allen was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

The film received generally strong reviews from critics, particularly in the United States. As of 21 January 2008 (2008 -01-21), Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 77 percent positive reviews, based on 203 reviews from American critics; however amongst the elite panel of forty-one "Top Critics" 90% approved of the film. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 72 out of 100, and thus "generally favourable reviews", based on forty professional critics. Match Point has also been the object of scholarship. Joseph Henry Vogel argues the film is exemplary of ecocriticism as an economic school of thought.

Ebert gave the film a full four stars, and agreed it was one of Allen's best in recent memory, in this case since 1989. He described the film as having a "terrible fascination that last all the way through", and ranked it with Allen's best work. Empire magazine gave the film four stars from five, calling it Allen's best of his last half a dozen films and recommended it even to those who are not fans of the director. Reviewers in the UK were generally less favourable. Philip French, writing in The Observer, criticised Allen's grasp of English idiom and the film's lack of humour, especially considering that two comic actors from the UK were cast in minor roles. Instead, the dialogue is rather lumbering and the lexicons of neither the City financier nor the London constable are used convincingly. Tim Robey, writing in The Daily Telegraph, disdained the claim that it was Allen's return to form, although he acknowledged that the consensus was stronger this time, he criticised "flat-footed a movie as Allen has ever made, a decent idea scuppered by a setting - London - which he treats with the peculiarly tin-eared reverence of a visitor who only thinks he knows his way around." He called Johansson's character "the chain-smoking mistress from hell", but said the tennis net analogy has an "unexpectedly crisp payoff" and that the last act was well handled. The BBC's review awarded the film four stars from five, and called it Allen's best film since Deconstructing Harry (1997). He also criticised some other English reviewers whose dislike, he said, was due to the fact that Allen presented an agreeable portrait of middle class life in London. He also praised the performances by Rhys Meyers and Johansson.

The film was, like many of Allen's, popular in France: Allocine, a cinema information website, gave it a score of 4.4/5, based on a sample of thirty reviews. Les Inrockuptibles, a left wing French cultural magazine gave the film a strong review, calling it "one of his most accomplished films". It characterised Allen's move to London as re-invigorating for him, while recognising the caricatured portrayal of England which made the film less appreciated there than in Allen's homeland, the United States. Allen's return to form was carried off by "impeccable" performances from his two leads, Mr Rhys Meyers and Miss Johansson.

External links

• Official website

Opera arias sung by the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, some of which are available from the Internet Archive:

• "Una furtiva lagrima" by Enrico Caruso
• "Mal reggendo all'aspro assalto" by Enrico Caruso
• "Mi par d'udir ancora" by Enrico Caruso
• "Mia piccirella" by Enrico Caruso

• Match Point at AllRovi
• Match Point at the Internet Movie Database