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# Match point lights up the screen
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/match-point-lights-up-the-screen-2/
- Published: 2005-12-30T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T08:27:31.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

Foremost among the well-deserved compliments I’d like to pay Woody Allen on his latest film, “Match Point,” is that it’s easy to forget it’s a Woody Allen film. With all due respect to the man responsible for “Annie Hall,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” his neurotic upper-crust New York-centric shtick had grown wearisome in recent years, resulting in a string of mostly forgettable flicks. The Woodman’s slump ends with “Match Point,” a crackling drama that represents an inspired departure from the 70-year-old filmmaker’s familiar routine. For one thing, the movie was filmed in London — a first for the native New Yorker prone to shooting almost exclusively in his hometown. Woody does not appear in the film either, nor are any of his characters even remote approximations. Gone too is the May- December romance that has become a regrettable staple of his recent material, and in lieu of his beloved jazz, Allen turned to opera for his musical backdrop.

“Match Point” does feature a fantastic young cast led by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“Bend it Like Beckham”) as Irishman Chris Wilton, a former tennis pro turned club instructor who befriends the wealthy Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) and marries his cute, yet unremarkable sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), gaining access to money and opportunity beyond his wildest dreams. Chris has another life-altering experience shortly thereafter when he meets Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), Tom’s irresistible American fiancé. He’s instantly smitten with this ticking time bomb of sex appeal, and sets his sights on bedding Nola even as he indulges his fertility-challenged wife in her increasingly desperate attempts to conceive a child. After Tom leaves Nola for a woman deemed more appropriate to his station in the English class system, Chris and his best bud’s ex begin a steamy affair that ultimately forces him to make a grave decision.

“Match Point” is a compelling morality play about lust and ambition in which Allen posits that luck may play a bigger role in our lives than our actions or emotions. It’s an interesting hypothesis that, as presented here by an invigorated Hollywood legend, is well worth exploring.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 30, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/123005.pdf?ref=smdp.com)