Match Point
The central flaw of this film is a theme reminiscent of "Crimes and Misdemeanors", that people who do unjust things in a godless universe can get away with it. An important difference is that "Crimes and Misdemeanors" portrayed this as a bad thing. For me, it underscored the urgency of establishing human-made justice. In "Match Point", on the other hand, it's a flippant, cynical rationalization for selfishness, as if a god's punishment is the only reason not to hurt other people. Empathy or even enlightened self-interest never figure in the calculation.
Not that good entertainment has to have moral characters as protagonists. But if you're going to make immoral people your (anti-)heroes, at least take us along for the ride with them. Make us blanche when we take their side. It's a challenge, to be sure, but possible. Think "The Sopranos", for example.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to occur to Woody Allen to even try to do this. Chris, the main character of this film, is inoffensive and not terribly interesting in the first scenes of the film, but he quickly shows himself to be a sullen asshole. He's a fairly accomplished tennis player who gets a job as a pro at an exclusive London club, befriends Tom, a young patron of the club who shares an interest in opera with him and sweeps his sister Chloe off her feet when he attends the opera with their family.
Chris reveals his unappealing side early on at an event with this family when he happens upon an American actress named Nola, played by Scarlett Johannsen, in a room with a ping-pong table. I don't remember his exact words, but apropos of nearly nothing, he says something like "did anyone ever tell you that you have a sensuous mouth?" while staring her down, then invading her space to show her how to use a ping-pong paddle. What are we to make of this? Chris, clearly handsome, doesn't have much use for banter or charm -- he just channels his lack thereof into sheer aggression. This is fine as far as it goes, but it demonstrates the workings of a player, a real notches-on-the-bedpost kind of guy, not the infatuated panderer he's to predictably become.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. What I think is more likely is that Woody Allen really wanted us to believe that there was some sexual tension and flirtation going on in that scene, but he's too lazy to actually illustrate that with plausible dialogue. Chris and Nola must like each other. The auteur will say "make it so", and we just have to accept on faith that Chris' ham-handed pickup technique (perhaps worthy of the bumbling Allen Felix from "Play It Again Sam") intrigued Nola.
Right after this exchange, Tom walks in and reveals Nola to be his fiance. This doesn't stop Chris: even as he deepens his relationship with the two-dimensional schoolgirlish Chloe, he obsesses over Nola. Why? She's sexy, sure, but she can't be the only London woman with pouty lips, so the obsession with Nola just feels like Woody Allen's contrivance.
Of course, Chris and Nola end up fucking, in the garden of their in-laws'-to-be, no less. Chris agitates for more fucking, inexplicably among all the family members at an opera. Why? He's not interested in leaving Chloe for Nola; he's enjoying the fruits of Chloe's absurd wealth too much.
I just wish that casual sex existed in Woody Allen's universe. If it did, Chris and Nola would just cough nervously around each other after their tryst and go on with their lives. I guess you could posit that Chris actually falls in love with Nola, but that wouldn't explain why he refuses to leave Chloe (whom he eventually marries) even when Nola and Tom break up, and even more so when he impregnates Nola. Big spoiler alert: he resolves this dilemma by killing Nola and making it look like a random drug crime.
For those of you keeping score at home, Chris feels so little for Nola that he can murder her while she's pregnant with his baby, yet he can't stay away from her before she gets pregnant, yet Chloe's material largesse keeps him in a marriage with her.
Chris is child-like in his insistence on wanting it all -- fucking pretty Nola while screwing Chloe for all the toys her family showers on them. I guess this isn't wholly implausible, but why is this interesting to watch? Chris' predicament is so maddeningly self-inflicted and obvious that it's hard to care about him, and his character is too lame to make us care. He gets away with the murder through an elaborate series of circumstances that says a lot about a screenwriter embroidering a scenario -- not revealing a profound truth about the randomness of fortune, as Chris' voice-over pompously suggests.
Once this movie lost me, then Woody Allen's sloppy lack of attention to detail was hard to avoid, and it's all over the movie. Chris is supposed to be Irish, but he doesn't have a hint of an Irish accent. Chloe and Tom's father gives Chris a job in the family business, but no one ever says what that business is or why a tennis player is in any way qualified to do it. A lot is said about Chris' gains and losses in "the market" -- is he a trader, maybe? -- but then he's involved in some sort of business deal with some Japanese businesspeople -- is he in M & A? A broker? What the fuck is going on? Is it an impossible imposition to ask that a writer make some teeny effort to find out the professions of his characters? And Chloe's father's conversations with Chris commit the worst sins of telling-the-viewer-instead-of-showing-the-viewer: we hear stagy lines like (I'm paraphrasing): "I hear you're doing very well at the office", or "you'll get a new position; it comes with a car and driver, of course ..." yawn.
At bottom, it's all indicative of a contempt for other people. Why bother finding out about how other people live when your characters are just ciphers? When all the characters really need to do is be functionaries in an allegory about how it's OK to hurt other people?
Not that good entertainment has to have moral characters as protagonists. But if you're going to make immoral people your (anti-)heroes, at least take us along for the ride with them. Make us blanche when we take their side. It's a challenge, to be sure, but possible. Think "The Sopranos", for example.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to occur to Woody Allen to even try to do this. Chris, the main character of this film, is inoffensive and not terribly interesting in the first scenes of the film, but he quickly shows himself to be a sullen asshole. He's a fairly accomplished tennis player who gets a job as a pro at an exclusive London club, befriends Tom, a young patron of the club who shares an interest in opera with him and sweeps his sister Chloe off her feet when he attends the opera with their family.
Chris reveals his unappealing side early on at an event with this family when he happens upon an American actress named Nola, played by Scarlett Johannsen, in a room with a ping-pong table. I don't remember his exact words, but apropos of nearly nothing, he says something like "did anyone ever tell you that you have a sensuous mouth?" while staring her down, then invading her space to show her how to use a ping-pong paddle. What are we to make of this? Chris, clearly handsome, doesn't have much use for banter or charm -- he just channels his lack thereof into sheer aggression. This is fine as far as it goes, but it demonstrates the workings of a player, a real notches-on-the-bedpost kind of guy, not the infatuated panderer he's to predictably become.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. What I think is more likely is that Woody Allen really wanted us to believe that there was some sexual tension and flirtation going on in that scene, but he's too lazy to actually illustrate that with plausible dialogue. Chris and Nola must like each other. The auteur will say "make it so", and we just have to accept on faith that Chris' ham-handed pickup technique (perhaps worthy of the bumbling Allen Felix from "Play It Again Sam") intrigued Nola.
Right after this exchange, Tom walks in and reveals Nola to be his fiance. This doesn't stop Chris: even as he deepens his relationship with the two-dimensional schoolgirlish Chloe, he obsesses over Nola. Why? She's sexy, sure, but she can't be the only London woman with pouty lips, so the obsession with Nola just feels like Woody Allen's contrivance.
Of course, Chris and Nola end up fucking, in the garden of their in-laws'-to-be, no less. Chris agitates for more fucking, inexplicably among all the family members at an opera. Why? He's not interested in leaving Chloe for Nola; he's enjoying the fruits of Chloe's absurd wealth too much.
I just wish that casual sex existed in Woody Allen's universe. If it did, Chris and Nola would just cough nervously around each other after their tryst and go on with their lives. I guess you could posit that Chris actually falls in love with Nola, but that wouldn't explain why he refuses to leave Chloe (whom he eventually marries) even when Nola and Tom break up, and even more so when he impregnates Nola. Big spoiler alert: he resolves this dilemma by killing Nola and making it look like a random drug crime.
For those of you keeping score at home, Chris feels so little for Nola that he can murder her while she's pregnant with his baby, yet he can't stay away from her before she gets pregnant, yet Chloe's material largesse keeps him in a marriage with her.
Chris is child-like in his insistence on wanting it all -- fucking pretty Nola while screwing Chloe for all the toys her family showers on them. I guess this isn't wholly implausible, but why is this interesting to watch? Chris' predicament is so maddeningly self-inflicted and obvious that it's hard to care about him, and his character is too lame to make us care. He gets away with the murder through an elaborate series of circumstances that says a lot about a screenwriter embroidering a scenario -- not revealing a profound truth about the randomness of fortune, as Chris' voice-over pompously suggests.
Once this movie lost me, then Woody Allen's sloppy lack of attention to detail was hard to avoid, and it's all over the movie. Chris is supposed to be Irish, but he doesn't have a hint of an Irish accent. Chloe and Tom's father gives Chris a job in the family business, but no one ever says what that business is or why a tennis player is in any way qualified to do it. A lot is said about Chris' gains and losses in "the market" -- is he a trader, maybe? -- but then he's involved in some sort of business deal with some Japanese businesspeople -- is he in M & A? A broker? What the fuck is going on? Is it an impossible imposition to ask that a writer make some teeny effort to find out the professions of his characters? And Chloe's father's conversations with Chris commit the worst sins of telling-the-viewer-instead-of-showing-the-viewer: we hear stagy lines like (I'm paraphrasing): "I hear you're doing very well at the office", or "you'll get a new position; it comes with a car and driver, of course ..." yawn.
At bottom, it's all indicative of a contempt for other people. Why bother finding out about how other people live when your characters are just ciphers? When all the characters really need to do is be functionaries in an allegory about how it's OK to hurt other people?
posted by honestpartisan | 10:46 PM
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