Newspaper Page Text
touring company
A Critically Acclaimed
Improv Comedy Troupe!
Former Cast Members Include:
Tina Fey, Mike Myers,
Chris Farley, John BelushL.and more!
Wednesday,
February 15
♦
UGA Fine Arts Building - 8pm
* ^ •
Students: $6/$8 day of show (with UGA ID)
Non-Students: $15/$ 17 day of show
Thursda
Monda
Frida
Tucsda
aturda
MATCH POINT IS A WINNER
HATCH POINT (R) Best known for his picture
postcards of the Big Apple, Woody Allen's working
holiday across the pond has produced his most
electrifying film in years. Former professional ten
nis player Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers)
believes that, no matter how hard one works,
winning at life depends on luck the same way
that winning a match does. Wilton's lucky bounce
comes when he meets Tom Hewett (Matthew
Goode), an upper crust, English playboy whose
father (Brian Cox, as good at playing the stately,
overprotective patriarch who provides his chil
dren's every need- be it a fiver or a job for their
potential spouse—as he is chewing scenery) owns
a number of profitable companies. Sharing what
appears to be a calculated interest in opera, Chris
gets himself invited to the family's private box,
where he meets Chloe (Emily Mortimer), Tom's
sweet sister. Chris' subsequent wooing of Chloe
allows him to wheedle his way into the Hewett
family, where unsurprisingly, he fits quite well.
Complications (there are always complications)
(James Nesbitt and Ewen Bremner's outsmarted
and dimwitted policemen, respectively).
Even directoriaUy, Match Point doesn't stray
too far from Allen's oeuvre. He still utilizes every
bit of the frame, letting no space go to waste,
and forces the viewer to choose that bit of ac
tion upon which he or she wishes to concentrate.
Tone is where this picture diverges from Allen's
cinematic stream. Ever the cynical romantic, the
filmmaker has suddenly chosen to cloak his bit
ter love in the noirish attire of Alfred Hitchcock.
His two main characters seem to have marched
straight from the pages of pulp fiction, yet
they are two of the most sympathetically hu
man characters, despite their obvious designs
on the hearts of the Hewett clan, ever created
by Allen. Nola is ever the James M. Cain femme
fatale, and Chris, all things to all people, is the
filmmaker's Tom Ripley, that master of conscious
deceit about whom Patricia Highsmith wrote.
Chris' entire conversation upon first meeting Tom
Hewett sounds scripted, as if he researched the
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson
arise when Chris meets Nola (Scarlett Johansson),
a wannabe actress, an unbeaten American tempt
ress and Tom's fiancee. Chris' and Nola's com
monality—both scrabbled their way up from life's
hard courts to the upper class' plush grass ones—
sparks an instant frisson, upon which they in
advisedly act. A few narrative feints later and the
married Chris begins a disastrous but passionate
affair (when will humanity learn there is no other
kind?) with Nola, while the seemingly infertile
Chloe sits at home, waiting to be impregnated.
When Chris discovers he is more in love with his
lavish lifestyle than he is with love, he makes a
final, uncharacteristic decision that may forever
change his luck, and therefore, his life.
Much ado has been made of Match Points be
ing a departure—of sorts—for Allen, America's
most prolific and talented filmmaker. Sure, the
film and its London setting commemorate his
first cinematic jaunt across the Atlantic; howev
er, this geographic distance marks the only true
dissociation the film takes from those of Allen's
past. From many critics' reactions, you'd think
Match Point opens with some ludicrous, Maurice
Bass credit sequence. It doesn't. The same com
forting white font on a black background informs
us of who will be playing the unfortunate souls
in Allen's amorality play. In Match Point, Allen
the writer tells the same misanthropic love story
he's told countless times over, and with less
brutality than in Deconstructing Harry. Be it age.
marriage or boredom, something always stands in
the way of true love and happiness for a Woody
Allen character. Less humorous than other Allen
films (stilt that, in and of itself, is nothing new;
see Interiors), Match Point manages to generate a
few laughs, some dryly comic, others slightly silly
fellow with the intent of infiltrating his family. -
It appears the former tennis player turned club
pro, with a plan as chiseled as his chin, sees the
ball finally bouncing his way. Displaying extreme
acting maturity for her age (she's still just 21),
while retaining the eerily youthful sexuality
Allen so values in his female leads, the sensuous,
nubile Johansson, her every curve on display
throughout the picture, is a perfect match for
Nola and the longtime filmmaker. Her drunken
one-on-one with Chris is frightening, not only
because he is powerless before her come-hither
nature, but because we (the collective audience)
are as well, thanks to the intimacy with which
Allen stages the seduction.
Match Point absolutely deserves its sole
Academy Award nomination in the Best Original
Screenplay category, as the film's strongest fea
ture is Allen's script. Its ensemble cast is too
communally good to single out just one perform
er (though I wouldn't be crying if Johansson's
name had been called), and the crafty direction
is nothing out of the ordinary for the Woodster.
But in the subtext heard 'round the world and
the deliberate plotting. Match Point reflects a
reinvigorated writer, which is first and foremost
what Allen is, at least before the camera begins
to roll. Whether or not it is the septuagenarian
filmmaker's new global perspective—he's already
finished a second London-based film, starring
Johansson no less, and has either a third BBC
Films production or a Barcelona-set picture in the
works—that rejuvenated his recently flagging
creativity matters little. Match Point is a winning
stroke by an American ace.
* Drew Wheeler
20 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 8,2006