Review of Match Point (2005) by Isabelle P — 23 Aug 2010

Match point is Woody Allen's scripting of an anti-tragedy, or the un-scripting of Classical Tragedy. Everything, from the Dostoevsky references to Sophocles' concluding statement, point towards a "new" tragedy where chance rather than fate, self determination rather than pre-determination (i.e. the tragic hero's necessary purging of the previous generation's sins) are the forces which define the narrative structure of this modern "tragic" tale. Our hero, Chris Wilton, is a self -making man (free will is inscribed in his surname), he is nearly devoid of all genealogical history, and ultimately it is with routine cyclical regeneration (with an emphasis on routine: the whole child bearing with his wife Chloe is altogether mechanical) rather than meaningful redemptive suffering, that the tale ends. His fate is thus hardly sealed from the beginning to the end, but instead his narrative subverts the tragic genre's conventions (and thereby constantly surprises the audience) and concludes by re-opening all possibilities of outcome for such a lucky character and subsequently his offspring. Tom's blessing of Chris' child: "Let him be lucky" is the paradoxical dictum for the homo novus. Our tragic hero is neither Oedipus nor Raskolnikov (or perhaps he is the very heroic ideal Raskolnikov fails to embody, the superman who has stepped beyond morality and intellectually rationalises rather than morally withstands the consequences of his crime. However, in Chris' case, it seems the world in which he circulates has itself abandoned all notions of good and evil and turned into a realm of brute luck. Chris' anti-hero is therefore one step beyond the superman, or the Camusian stranger for that matter (where the anti-hero is indifferent to his fate), as instead it is Fate which is indifferent to the hero and it lets him get away with it. The most amusing bit is how ludicrous the real criminal scenario seems when it is summed up "in a dream" by the investigative cop. Truly the fictional quality of the detective's re-composition of the crime was too flattering, passionate and literary, to be believable.

Instead again, routine, mechanism and typicality triumph in all respects.

As David Denby pointed out, Chris' ascension, which is played out in the first part of the movie, is impossibly easy: both his effort and the fruits of his efforts are almost trivialized --everything is handed over to him and none of it has any depth. In sharp contrast to his easy successes, Nola Rice's social and professional pursuits are constantly shattered. Her heredity, her trumped love, her struggles with integration and her antagonism with the mother in law are every bit the underlying tragedy to Chris' anti-tragedy. Yet her unravelling only exists as a foil, a sub-plot to Chris' own anti-climactic drama. I do however think Woody Allen should step on the break. He has just proven to be, still, at the top of his game and should not waste his energy making a film every year for the sake of it. Truly, his faithful audience would much rather wait around for a rare gem (such as this one) than put up with mediocre instalments of recycled material which are meant to keep an audience content in the mean time ( i.e. Hollywood Ending, Melinda Melinda). I am sure we'd all much rather review his older masterworks instead.