Match Point (released in theaters on Dec. 28, 2005) marked a dramatic departure from Woody Allen‘s neurotic comedies, delivering instead a taut, operatic thriller that explores the terrifying role of chance in human destiny. It is a film where morality is a luxury that the lucky simply cannot afford.
Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a former tennis pro from a modest background who secures a job as an instructor at an elite London club.
His life takes a sharp upward turn when he befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) and begins dating Tom’s sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer).
Chloe’s wealthy father (Brian Cox) and mother (Penelope Wilton) welcome Chris into their aristocratic world, providing him with a high-level executive position and a lifestyle of unimaginable privilege.
However, Chris’s climb into the upper class is complicated by an overwhelming, primal attraction to Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), an aspiring American actress and Tom’s struggling fiancée.
Their clandestine affair becomes a dangerous obsession, fueled by mutual desperation and sexual tension.
When Chris marries Chloe but continues to pursue Nola, the double life begins to fracture. Nola becomes pregnant and demands that Chris leave his comfortable, gilded life to be with her.
Faced with the prospect of losing his status and returning to obscurity, Chris is forced into a series of cold, calculated decisions.
The film builds to a haunting climax where the difference between justice and total escape rests entirely on the trajectory of a falling ring, mimicking a tennis ball hitting the tape of the net.
The tennis club scenes were filmed at the exclusive Queen’s Club, a private club in Barons Court, West Kensington, London, England.
The film was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Scarlett Johansson in Match Point (Photo/DreamWorks Pictures)
Reception for Match Point
Match Point grossed $731,383 on its opening weekend, in limited release on eight screens with a per-screen average of $66,179.
The film would gross $85.6 million worldwide.
Roger Ebert gave Match Point four out of four stars in his review.
Allen was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Legacy
Match Point‘s legacy is its status as a premier modern noir that successfully revived the “crime and punishment” theme for a contemporary audience. It is widely considered one of Allen’s greatest late-career achievements, praised for its sharp script and its cynical, unflinching view of the British class system.
The film famously launched a fruitful creative partnership between Allen and Johansson, who became a defining muse for his European era.
The movie is also remembered for its brilliant use of opera as a narrative backbone, reflecting the heightened, tragic stakes of Chris’s choices.
By eschewing a traditional moral ending in favor of a meditation on the sheer randomness of luck, Match Point sparked intense debate about the nature of justice in cinema.
It remains a chillingly effective thriller that suggests that in the game of life, it is often better to be lucky than good, standing as a dark masterpiece of suspense and psychological depth.
