DVD Review: Match Point

Any tennis player can tell you that there comes a point in a match where the ball hits the tape at the top of the net and for a split second the ball hangs in suspended space while both players hold their collective breath. Where the ball falls seems to be either mostly luck or unknown physics of how the world spins. Woody Allen's latest movie, Match Point, deals with the former -- the randomness of events in life.

Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Myers), a former tennis pro, has seen far too many balls drop on his side of the net. He's now retired, and takes a job teaching the upper crust of England to hit the ball around. One of his clients is Tom, who takes a liking to him, and invites him out to the opera (they both share a love, and much of the movie's soundtrack is made up of it). The gay vibes between the two fade quickly when we are introduced to Nola (Scarlett Johansson) a blazing-hot American actress whom Tom is dating. Chris is immediatley drawn to her, but there's a problem -- he's currently dating Tom's sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer).

This is only the opening of the plot, and no more will be given away here. It should be noted however, that this film veers from a tennis-court love story to a much darker field as each minute of its two-hour running time barrels on.

As one might expect, the acting is superb. Rhys-Myers only uses two looks but that is all his character needs. He's either brooding or lusting over something, and by the movies end they are one and the same. Bryan Cox plays the rich benefactor and father of Tom and Chloe. It's clearly a one-note character, but he plays it with enough grace to make us feel like he deeply cares for his children. In fact, he may be the only morally sound character in Match Point, even though he is the wealthiest.

Many will undoubtedly draw comparisons to the movie Closer because of how badly behaved the rest of these characters are. That's the main flaw as well: we start out liking Chris, who has self-admittingly pulled himself up from his bootstraps, and made something out of nothing. We are intrigued by the romance between Tom and Nola and its passion. They met at a party and "one thing led to another," as Tom says.

However, what starts out as an innocuous love triangle quickly degenerates into the very rich behaving very badly. As Chris becomes more and more obsessed with what he can't have, we lose our ability to care for him. Everything thereafter becomes another event without significance -- but considering the theme of the movie, maybe that's what Allen was aiming for.

Verdict: ** 1/2