Movie Review: Match Point
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.