That was a great movie. Really well done.

[fflo]

SPOILERS! SPOILERS about Match Point here!

Okay, what makes it especially good is its ambiguity about what's the good luck & what's the bad. Not just, or even primarily, in that toggling way that was in the book I loved as a child, Fortunately, which followed the same format as my friend LTM's book (I think it was) with the title Good Thing, Bad Thing, which is some kinda famous ancient Eastern wisdom story format, too (the son who breaks his leg & is said to've been unlucky, "Perhaps" sez the dad, then the broken leg keeps him out of the draft, so he's thought lucky, "Perhaps" sez the dad, etc.). It's all in what seems like good luck being bad luck in a way that only our protagonist knows (in his private horror).

And that's about a fantasy/horror karmic sort of no winning when you thwart justice, as no seed of justice = meaninglessness.

It's a new take on Woody's long-running theme about living with philosophy in an existentialist state. You almost gotta wonder about his own big sin (that we know of) & guilt about getting away with it.

It's really late, and I'm ge-zonked, so it's no surprise I've bolloxed talking of it with this not-even-half-assed posting. But it was a good movie. Fer shurr.

Comments

what Sarris said---pt. II

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Match Point is not awash in ambience as Chris begins his rapid ascent to a world of riches and social prominence. It all looks much too easy, and one wonders at first if Woody is in the right medium for what plays, initially at least, like a stage-bound comedy of manners---until, that is, Tom Hewett introduces our hero to his explosively sensual fiancée, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), an aspiring American actress. Chris is immediately entranced, and sets out to gain her favors even as he is in the process of courting and marrying Chloe.

Neither Nola nor Chloe is treated as the womanly ideal incarnated by Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow in Woody's more open-hearted eras. Nola is disqualified from such consideration by gradually being reduced to an increasingly petulant sexpot with little acting talent and less and less self-esteem. For her part, Chloe begins with such little self-esteem that she pursues Chris as if he were her last hope to get married, an impression that her father, Alec (Brian Cox), and mother, Eleanor (Penelope Wilton), reinforce by their almost embarrassing eagerness to embrace Chris as their son-in-law. By contrast, Eleanor is so acerbic to Nola that her son eventually breaks his engagement, compelling Nola to return home to Colorado.

Meanwhile, Chloe begins badgering Chris soon after their marriage to get her pregnant immediately. She becomes even more impatient after Tom marries a more socially acceptable partner than Nola and in short order provides a grandchild for his parents, now doting grandparents.

When Chris discovers that Nola has returned from America and opened a boutique in London, he sets out to resume their lustful liaisons, and succeeds. His strenuous double life, however, begins to crumble around him when Nola informs him that she is pregnant and demands that he leave Chloe. It is match-point time for Chris: If he leaves Chloe, it's goodbye to his cushy life as the boss' son-in-law. Nor has he shown himself to be a brilliant businessman who can successfully strike out on his own. When he suggests an abortion to Nola, she becomes even more of a pathetically comic figure when she reveals to him that she has had two abortions already and doesn't plan to have a third.

Desperate measures are called for, and they are soon undertaken, but with enough twists and turns to implicate us all in the outcome. The diabolical logic in Match Point reminds me of nothing so much as Charles Chaplin’s much-underestimated Marxist logic in Monsieur Verdoux (1947), though Woody is less a rabid Marxist than a resigned fatalist with respect to the ways of the world. And after his tabloid adventures and his against-all-odds professional survival, who is to say that he shouldn't be absolved of the charge of facile cynicism? And how does he always manage to recruit such talented performers at reduced rates? If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.