Match Point  

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Match Point is a 2005 thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen which stars 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 his affair with his brother-in-law's ex-girlfriend, played by Johansson, and her subsequent pregnancy. 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 mostly 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 praised the film and its British setting, and welcomed it as a return to form for Allen. In contrast, reviewers from the United Kingdom treated Match Point less favourably, finding fault with the locations and, especially, the idiom of the dialogue. Allen was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Plot

Chris Wilton, 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, after discovering their common affinity for opera. Tom's older sister, Chloe, is smitten with Chris and the two begin dating. During a family gathering, Chris meets Tom's American fiancée, Nola Rice, and they are instantly attracted to each other. Tom's mother, Eleanor, does not approve of her son's relationship with Nola, a struggling actress, which is a source of tension in the family. Chloe encourages her father, Alec, to give Chris a job as an executive in one of his companies; he begins to be accepted into the family and marriage is discussed.

During a storm, after having her choice of profession attacked by Eleanor, Nola leaves the house to be alone. 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 Chloe marry, but Tom ends his relationship with Nola.

Chloe, to her distress, does not become pregnant immediately. Chris vainly tries to track down Nola, but meets her by chance some time later at Tate Modern. He discreetly asks for her number and they begin an affair. While 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 becomes distant from Chloe, who suspects 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 work 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 into the apartment of her neighbor, Mrs. Eastby. He shoots and kills her, then stages a burglary by ransacking the room and stealing some jewelry and drugs. As Nola returns he shoots her in the stairwell. He then takes a taxi to the theater to watch a musical with Chloe. Scotland Yard investigates the crime and concludes 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 that she is pregnant with Chris' child.

Detective Mike Banner invites Chris for an interview in relation to the murder. Beforehand, Chris throws Mrs. Eastby's jewelry 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 is featured 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, Dowd, who informs him that a drug peddler found murdered on the streets had Mrs. Eastby's ring in his pocket. Banner and Dowd consider the case closed and abandon any further investigation. The film ends with Chloe giving birth to a baby boy named Terrence, and his uncle blessing him not with goodness but luck.

Cast

• Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Chris Wilton
• Scarlett Johansson as Nola Rice
• Emily Mortimer as Chloe Hewett Wilton
• Matthew Goode as Tom Hewett
• Brian Cox as Alec Hewett
• Penelope Wilton as Eleanor Hewett
• Ewen Bremner as Inspector Dowd
• James Nesbitt as Detective Mike Banner
• Rupert Penry-Jones as Henry
• Margaret Tyzack as Mrs. Eastby
• Alexander Armstrong as Mr. Townsend
• Geoffrey Streatfeild as Alan Sinclair
• Miranda Raison as Heather
• Rose Keegan as Carol
• Colin Salmon as Ian
• Toby Kebbell as Policeman

Themes

The film's opening voiceover from Wilton introduces its themes of chance and fate, which he characterises as simple luck, to him 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 Dostoyevsky'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, both are almost caught by a painter's unexpected appearance in the stairwell, and both sleuths play cat and mouse with the suspect. Allen argues, unlike Dostoyevsky, that there is neither God, nor 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 tries 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 racked with guilt over violating his moral code. Eventually, he learns to ignore his guilt and go on as though nothing has happened. 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's secure position is demonstrated 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 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, Chloe, herself has no qualms about having her father essentially "buy" her husband for her.

Jean-Baptiste Morain, writing in Les Inrockuptibles, noticed how 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.