Scoring "Match Point"

Yesterday, CineVerse served up a healthy helping of Woody Allen in its final exploration of the filmmaker's work by exploring "Match Point," which provoked an interesting discussion. Here are some of the highlights of what was talked about:

HOW IS MATCH POINT DIFFERENT FROM ALLEN’S PREVIOUS PICTURES?

·       It’s a thriller structured like a dark film noir; Nola is a femme fatale who leads men into danger, just like the great spider women featured in classic films noir of the 1940s-1950s

·       It offers very little comic relief and no romance

·       It does not feature a Woody Allen like character/protagonist who is neurotic

·       It is set in London, not New York

·       It is more sexually charged, erotic, and violent than anything Allen has done previously

·       The characters are morally unattractive, forcing the audience to identify with people who behave badly

·       Allen uses opera arias instead of jazz tunes and American standards

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE IMPORTANT THEMES PLUMBED IN MATCH POINT?

·       The power of fate and chance to impact one’s life, as exemplified in the tennis ball motif—it bounces off the net and randomly lands on one side vs. the other, resulting in victory or defeat

·       The corrupting power of greed and lust, two vices that Chris has to choose between in the forms of his wife and his mistress, respectively

·       Crime is its own consequence: there is no redemption offered by punishment, love or God

·       There is no “right vs. wrong” here, it’s more about Darwinian dynamics and getting away with crime because you can and because it’s convenient; as Ebert said in his review: “Every character is rotten. This is a thriller not about good vs. evil, but about various species of evil engaged in a struggle for survival of the fittest or…the luckiest.”

·       The film asks: is there justice in the universe?

·       The dangers of unscrupulous ambition and indulging in immediate pleasures that can have consequences

 ·       Life is a game, and the main character has to play the game as tennis athlete, husband/social climber, lover/philanderer, and criminal committing the perfect crime

DOES MATCH POINT REMIND YOU OF ANY OTHER FILMS OR WORKS OF ART?

·       Allen’s own previous “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” which depicts a man who has his mistress killed after she theatens to expose their affair to his wife; both films explore the question of crime and punishment

o   However, unlike Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point shows the criminal as offensive and opportunistic; the other film’s criminal kills his mistress because she threatens his status quo lifestyle of comfort and respectability, and he is removed from the crime in that his brother takes care of the murder

o   According to one reviewer: “While Judah (criminal in Crimes and Misdemeanors) is a man who is pushed into evil and finds he’s more comfortable there than he thought he would be, Match Point is about a man who never quite leaves the pool.”

·       Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, in that both main characters are brooding loners who kill, try to hide their crime by staging a robbery, and are toyed with by the detectives.