I Didn't Like Her, But It's Awful What Happened To Her
London has never looked as beautiful as it has in Woody Allen's Match Point, which seems to have rather rankled with the London-centric media in this country, accusing the film of misinterpreting and fudging details which frankly won't bother any audiences outside the capital, and bringing out the most fearsome and potent weapon in any British critic's arsenal - that the picture resembles the work of Richard Curtis. Now hang on a moment there! Allen's London may be a cookbook of tourist sights stitched together with streets and apartments of belief-beggaring opulence, but he remains the romantic pessimist to Curtis' romantic optimist - a fact reinforced by a shot of the London Eye which Curtis would probably have devoted a luscious crane shot to, but which Allen furtively pans down, making extra sure to show it against some of the grimmest grey skies in a largely sunlight-free film. To cinemagoers outside London, the whole controversy over the representation of that city looks like a British equivalent of the fuss over Chinese actresses taking the lead roles in Memoirs of a Geisha - in that audiences might well find themselves wishing that these controversies really were the worst thing about the film.
For Match Point, despite some electric performances, plays out like a particularly limp Patricia Highsmith novel, or - worse - a clumsy retreading of the areas so well staked out by Allen devotees the Coen brothers in their underrated The Man Who Wasn't There. Allen's London is about as real as his Manhattan, but what does this matter when the least realistic thing on offer here is the characters?
Recap. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a working-class Irish cipher whose extraordinary tennis skills win him the friendship of Tom Hewitt, an upper-class landed gentry cipher about to marry Nola Rice (Scarlett Johanssen), a lush American actress cipher whose motivation remains unfathomable at all points. Also mixed into the plot are Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton as Tom's parents (snobbish ciphers, effectively) and James Nesbitt as a brilliant detective cipher who at one point actually sits bolt upright in bed after having a Brilliant Dream that will Crack This Case Wide Open. That moment would be just about acceptable in a Woody Allen comedy; in a drama, it's inexcusable.
Allen and his fans (among which I do include myself, despite his most determined efforts to shake me off) often complain that critics and punters fail to acknowledge Allen's talent for serious philosophical drama as well as light comedy. I think this picture explains why people can't accept him as a dramatist; despite paying lip service to the idea of looking into his characters' souls, the picture is as artificially plot-driven as a standard bedroom farce, only without the luxury of comic pay-offs. A character who has been established as an intuitive genius suddenly becomes the world's worst liar for no other reason than It's In The Script, and then switches back again when the narrative needs him to become a criminal mastermind again. Perhaps this is part of Allen's meditation on the theme of chance, though it's unlikely; this theme is usually signalled in moments of clanking non-dialogue such as the moment where, after a stroke of unbelievably bad luck, Chris laments "What unbelievably bad luck!"
Allen's dialogue is astonishingly leaden here, though his framing (particularly in scenes at Tate Modern) is as crisp as ever. The real saving grace of Match Point is in its central performances, most notably Emily Mortimer, who takes a thankless, borderline misogynistic characterisation of a shrewish, neurotic wife begging her husband for a baby and gives it real life, charm and vitality. As her romantic rival, Scarlett Johanssen is a little more variable, and one wonders whether the praise heaped on her by Allen and critics is down to her acting or her willingness to play the muse to aging auteurs. Her drunk scenes are absolutely bravura, but she's too green to carry the hefty plot mechanics Allen has saddled her character with, unable to muster up any passion with Chris through their perfunctory seduction and their sex scenes, which are laden with appalling cliches - baby oil, blindfolds, copious ripped shirts, the full Mills and Boon. Rhys-Meyers, as Chris, is more convincing, but then his character is so blank that he could interpret it any way and still have it be valid. He does produce some wonderful little grace notes, though, such as his puzzled, almost contemptuous glance at the Cenotaph while dreaming up some new evil scheme.
Like Spike Lee, Woody Allen does not always score highly with the critics or the public, but he always manages to get high-profile actors no matter what. There's a remarkable moment in Match Point where Mark Gatiss literally comes into shot, smiles, then walks off without saying a word, a role which could have been filled by any extra but which here apparently requires the services of one of the UK's most prolific and distinctive comic performers and writers. When actors are asked why they do these desultory little cameos, the reply is always the same; "Well, it is a Woody Allen film!" How ironic that the reason for Match Point's prestige is also the reason for its failure. It's a Woody Allen film where everything is good except for Woody Allen.
For Match Point, despite some electric performances, plays out like a particularly limp Patricia Highsmith novel, or - worse - a clumsy retreading of the areas so well staked out by Allen devotees the Coen brothers in their underrated The Man Who Wasn't There. Allen's London is about as real as his Manhattan, but what does this matter when the least realistic thing on offer here is the characters?
Recap. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a working-class Irish cipher whose extraordinary tennis skills win him the friendship of Tom Hewitt, an upper-class landed gentry cipher about to marry Nola Rice (Scarlett Johanssen), a lush American actress cipher whose motivation remains unfathomable at all points. Also mixed into the plot are Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton as Tom's parents (snobbish ciphers, effectively) and James Nesbitt as a brilliant detective cipher who at one point actually sits bolt upright in bed after having a Brilliant Dream that will Crack This Case Wide Open. That moment would be just about acceptable in a Woody Allen comedy; in a drama, it's inexcusable.
Allen and his fans (among which I do include myself, despite his most determined efforts to shake me off) often complain that critics and punters fail to acknowledge Allen's talent for serious philosophical drama as well as light comedy. I think this picture explains why people can't accept him as a dramatist; despite paying lip service to the idea of looking into his characters' souls, the picture is as artificially plot-driven as a standard bedroom farce, only without the luxury of comic pay-offs. A character who has been established as an intuitive genius suddenly becomes the world's worst liar for no other reason than It's In The Script, and then switches back again when the narrative needs him to become a criminal mastermind again. Perhaps this is part of Allen's meditation on the theme of chance, though it's unlikely; this theme is usually signalled in moments of clanking non-dialogue such as the moment where, after a stroke of unbelievably bad luck, Chris laments "What unbelievably bad luck!"
Allen's dialogue is astonishingly leaden here, though his framing (particularly in scenes at Tate Modern) is as crisp as ever. The real saving grace of Match Point is in its central performances, most notably Emily Mortimer, who takes a thankless, borderline misogynistic characterisation of a shrewish, neurotic wife begging her husband for a baby and gives it real life, charm and vitality. As her romantic rival, Scarlett Johanssen is a little more variable, and one wonders whether the praise heaped on her by Allen and critics is down to her acting or her willingness to play the muse to aging auteurs. Her drunk scenes are absolutely bravura, but she's too green to carry the hefty plot mechanics Allen has saddled her character with, unable to muster up any passion with Chris through their perfunctory seduction and their sex scenes, which are laden with appalling cliches - baby oil, blindfolds, copious ripped shirts, the full Mills and Boon. Rhys-Meyers, as Chris, is more convincing, but then his character is so blank that he could interpret it any way and still have it be valid. He does produce some wonderful little grace notes, though, such as his puzzled, almost contemptuous glance at the Cenotaph while dreaming up some new evil scheme.
Like Spike Lee, Woody Allen does not always score highly with the critics or the public, but he always manages to get high-profile actors no matter what. There's a remarkable moment in Match Point where Mark Gatiss literally comes into shot, smiles, then walks off without saying a word, a role which could have been filled by any extra but which here apparently requires the services of one of the UK's most prolific and distinctive comic performers and writers. When actors are asked why they do these desultory little cameos, the reply is always the same; "Well, it is a Woody Allen film!" How ironic that the reason for Match Point's prestige is also the reason for its failure. It's a Woody Allen film where everything is good except for Woody Allen.