Match Point

“Men seem to think I’d be some­thing very… spe­cial” are words that fall eas­i­ly from the lips of Nola, (Scar­lett Johans­son) as she seduc­tive­ly ebbs fur­ther from sobri­ety. It’s pos­si­ble to for­give a young man like Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Mey­ers) for think­ing of stray­ing from his wife for such a woman, but much hard­er to sym­pa­thise with his motives before the end.

Rhys-Mey­ers is excel­lent in Match Point. A poor ten­nis pro caught up in the lives of wealthy Lon­don­ers the Hewetts, he quick­ly pro­gress­es from fam­i­ly friend to fam­i­ly mem­ber, mar­ry­ing Chloe (Emi­ly Mor­timer) but always with one eye on his brother-in-law’s Amer­i­can fiancée. Nola is the sex­u­al thrill that Chris’ wife just can’t offer. No great shakes there.

In fact there’s very lit­tle at all to doubt, ques­tion or be sur­prised by in the open­ing half of Woody Allen’s first for­ay into Lon­don. Worse, some of the dia­logue is nau­se­at­ing, and the lives of these young, rich kids are so dif­fi­cult to con­nect with (“Do try the caviar!”, ​“Chris nev­er goes any­where with­out his dri­ver!”) that the non-mil­lion­aires in the cheap seats might lose any sense of empa­thy for them all together.

Bri­an Cox helps dis­tract atten­tion from this tedious youth­ful afflu­ence, shoot­ing pheas­ants, rep­ri­mand­ing his wife for hav­ing one too many G ​‘n’ Ts and pat­ting peo­ple on the back reas­sur­ing­ly when they need more money.

Ulti­mate­ly, Match Point’s rapid plot-devel­op­ment is its great­est strength, and Woody cer­tain­ly packs a lot in. There’s great sto­ry-telling here, and as the film pro­gress­es, it becomes increas­ing­ly absorb­ing. It’s unfor­tu­nate, then, that some dis­tract­ing cast­ing mars the film’s oth­er­wise excel­lent final act, with sev­er­al faces famil­iar to British audi­ences pop­ping up in unsuit­able and uncon­vinc­ing roles.

Match Point is enjoy­able, if lack­ing in a lit­tle charm. Johansson’s Nola is with­out real spark, Emi­ly Mor­timer fawns con­vinc­ing­ly and Ryhs-Mey­ers seems to enjoy being con­sis­tent­ly broody. But Woody can do bet­ter than this, and we know it.