Saturday, January 28, 2006

Match Point
(5 stars out of five)
It started with Anything Else, continued through Melinda and Melinda, and finally reaches its peak here with this film: the return to form, of Woody Allen. Match Point is Allen's darkest film since Crimes and Misdemeanors in '89, and it's a welcome change from his recent decade-long run in making comedies. Perfectly cast, tightly scripted, and filled with Allen's darkly comic views on faith and humanity, it's probably the most "adult" film he's ever made, replacing the often-neurotic male protagonist of his films with an almost shockingly (at least by Woody standards) confident character. Especially of note is Woody's striking use of slow motion in the film, something he's never used before in his four decades of filmmaking. I won't go into the movie any more. It's best you go into it knowing as little as you can.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know, I have yet to see the film, but what's keeping me from it is that it looks an awful lot like Fatal Attraction. I suppose I'd have to see it all the way through. It's just getting frustrating to see so many similar screenplays out there.

Andrew said...

It's actually really nothing like Fatal Attraction at all... I don't think I'm giving anything away by coming right out and saying that it's NOT a thriller at all... actually the movie that it's most like is the other Woody movie I mentioned in the review, Crimes and Misdemeanors, at least plotwise. But this is one of those movies that hardly is about the plot at all. The plot is just a starting point for everything else. I would give some caution, however, since it is a Woody Allen movie...his films are almost always love it or hate it, with most people.