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Review

Chris Wilton (Rhys-Meyers) is young, handsome and amiable. His career playing professional tennis didn’t go as planned, but his new job as tennis pro at a very exclusive London club has opened gilded doors. He becomes a close friend of Tom Hewitt (Goode), the scion of a very wealthy and very well-connected family. Chris is personable and makes himself conversant with the interests of Hewitt family members; he finds himself courted by Tom’s sister Chloe (Mortimer) and mentored by Tom’s father (Cox). He also finds himself obsessively attracted to Tom’s impossibly beautiful fiancée Nola (Johansson).

Chris and Nola share physical attractiveness and vibrant energy; they also share the uncertainty and self-consciousness suffered by people of pedestrian origins in the presence of great privilege and power. Their brief affair offers refuge from the expectations of their social betters. But Chris has the comfort of being accepted and groomed for his new status. Nola is really never more than a bauble for Tom, and is eventually discarded. She exits and Chris marries Chloe and settles into a very comfortable life. But Nola reappears and Chris cannot stay away.

Chris wants his passion with Nola and his comfort and status with Chloe. But when Chris finds himself at risk of losing all, he commits a horrendous act of violence at extreme odds with his docile demeanor. But will there be retribution?

Match Point is a clever and witty contemplation of the relative value of luck vs. ability, of chance vs. skill, in determining the course of any human life. It explores reactions to stress and the threat of loss, and conflicts of class and culture. Initially, Match Point seems to be the first film Allen has directed in which he is not exorcising personal demons; but maybe Brooklyn-born Allen Konigsberg hears echoes of his past in Chris’ circumstances. The film is intelligent, adult and most perceptive; it is Allen’s best work in years, and arguably his most accomplished film.

 -- Ann Yarabinee