Movie Review: Match Point

Friday, December 14, 2007

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton.

Directed by Woody Allen and produced by BBC Films.

Rated R with a running time of 124 minutes.

Nominated for an Oscar for best writing and original screenplay.


A match point in tennis is the final point needed to win a match.

This well-written and well-directed movie about human affairs and emotions is based around that central notion.

I have to admit, I rented the movie because Scarlett Johansson starred in it and she is phenomenal. It was also a night when I would be home by myself and just needed what I thought would be a good chick flick.

I was wrong and pleasantly surprised.

Tennis player Chris Wilton (Meyers) is in a transition in his life. He strikes it rich, literally, when he meets Tom Hewett (Goode), a member of a wealthy British family. The friendship is a foot in the door to the good life after Tom introduces Chris to his sweet, but predictable sister, Chloe (Mortimer). Chris would have a great life, if he just left things as they were.

But one day, Chris meets Nola (Johansson), Tom's fiancé, a sexy and risqué struggling American actress who he becomes obsessed with after the two finally give into their attraction for each other.

The story unfolds in a mix of obsession, passion and self-destruction as the audience watches Chris try to keep his affair from his wife and her family. For a while he tries to "have his cake and eat it too", enjoying the wealth and privilege of his wife's family and maintaining a passionate affair with Nola. Once he realizes that his mistress, and not his wife, has become pregnant, he must find a way to cover up the affair for good.

As Chris is going through the motions of covering up the affair, there is a scene where he throws a handful of items over a railing and into a river. Unknown to him, one item bounces on the rail, like a tennis ball bounces on a net, undecided as to which side it will land and proclaim that player a winner. The item falls back to the ground. One would think for sure in the set of circumstances that would be a bad turn of events for Chris. Ironically it isn't.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes a good mystery or just a really well done movie.