Review of Match Point (2005) by Patrick L — 26 Aug 2013

It's tagged as a mystery and suspense as well as drama but really there is little suspense. The audience is in full view of the goings on, whether it is the affair between two people who may end up as in-laws, the killing of the spurned and trouble making lover who is played by Scarlett, the sensual and sometimes hot romantic scenes, or whatever else Woody Allen puts in front of his cameras. 5/10.

Match Point is reviewed as a marvelously sexy thriller but I regard it more as a sexy drama that dissolves into a less than thrilling psycho-drama after it loses steam and credibility upon the murder of betrayed lover (Scarlett Johansson). The camera falls for her sultry, pouty, American actress even as a tennis instructor falls under her spell.

At first she is with the rich male whom the instructor is teaching, then she and the instructor (who is seeing his client's sister) have an impulsive sexual encounter that leads to an affair (after he has married the sister). She wants more from him but gets seemingly empty promises and then when she badgers him more, he breaks and kills her neighbour in preparation for killing her.

It's hard to figure out this instructor - what kind of guy he is at the core. Is he melancholy? Does he love the woman he marries or is he using her because of her wealth and because the other woman he has eyes for is with his client/friend? He appears to be something of a psychopath or is not empathic as he murdered an uninvolved woman before murderering his pregnant lover; a later scene with the spirits(?) of the two murdered women seems to paint the killer as psychopathic. Although I have viewed this film (on dvd) more than once, it was hard to watch past a certain point but finally I watched, paid attention, all the way through. 6/10.