英文影评: 赛末点 Match Point review by TIM KNIGHT

A hit at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, Woody Allen's Match Point arrives in theaters, hyped as the fallen critical darling's strongest film in years. Twenty years ago, when Allen was at his cinematic peak, such effusive praise would have carried weight. In the context of the director's recent, completely negligible films—Melinda and Melinda and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion—it's more than a little hard to believe that he has finally emerged from his prolonged filmmaking slump. Especially since there are always fawning critics who'll greet every new Allen film, no matter how disposable, as the work of a genius.

So does Match Point mark a return to form, as many critics have breathlessly claimed? Not really—this polished, impeccably acted and mercifully shtick-free morality play manages to come across as both overwritten and schematically rendered. Trading the insular world of Manhattan intelligentsia for the even more rarefied milieu of British society, Allen has crafted a potentially thought-provoking study of class and privilege that unfolds like a shallow, Anglicized spin on A Place in the Sun.

 

Set entirely in London, the film poses an intriguing question: Would you rather be lucky or good? It's a no-brainer for former tennis pro Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), whose actions will ultimately contradict his expressions of fatalism. Never a powerhouse on the tennis circuit, Chris dreams of the glamorous life and wealth that's long eluded him. Through his job teaching tennis to the rich and well-connected members of an exclusive country club, Chris soon befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) and his pretty, uncomplicated sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Although he's genuinely fond of Chloe, Chris primarily sees her as his entrée to a posh lifestyle and prestigious career working for her doting father (Brian Cox). Everything seems to be going according to plan—until Chris lays eyes on Nola (Scarlett Johansson), Tom's alluring American fiancée.

 

A fellow outsider to upper-crust British society, Nola becomes Chris' obsession. Tempting fate, he embarks on a steamy, clandestine affair with her that could destroy his chance to grab the brass ring proffered by marriage to Chloe. Torn between his hunger for privilege and his desire for Nola, Chris makes a choice that will put his luck to the ultimate test.

 

Somewhat reminiscent of Allen's far superior Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point has neither the intellectual resonance nor emotional nuance of that 1989 comedy-drama, which truly ranks among his very best. His 40th film is skillfully made and undeniably literate—almost to the point of sounding arch and self-conscious—but it simply doesn't burrow deeply enough into the characters, who lack the emotional and psychological layers to endow the movie with genuine pathos. And for a film that addresses the thorny issues of money and class, and how the heady lure of both could inspire someone like Chris to become an amoral opportunist, Match Point is yet another Woody Allen film blithely dismissive of economic reality. For example, Allen introduces Nola as a struggling actress from a broken, working-class home, but for a woman of extremely limited means in one of the world's most prohibitively expensive cities, she lives in a cozy, well-appointed flat, without flat-mates. Nor do we get a strong enough sense of the reduced circumstances Chris dreads will be his future if he leaves Chloe for Nola. In contrast, the thematically similar A Place in the Sun (George Stevens' classic adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy) is a far more acutely observed and realistic portrait of the steep divide between the rich and the poor.

 

Such criticism aside, Match Point does have its strengths: handsome visuals, crisp pacing, and top-notch performances by the entire cast, which also includes Penelope Wilton as the cruelly blunt Hewett matriarch. As for Johansson, the lone Yank in the cast, she's luminous and uncommonly self-possessed in a rather amorphous role.

 

While Match Point doesn't quite erase the taint left by Allen's post-Sweet and Lowdown films, it's nevertheless a promising step in the right direction.

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