The former British tennis professional Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) takes up a job as a tennis instructor, giving private lessons to London’s upperclass. On the training ground he makes the acquaintance of Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), the son of a corporate mogul, who’s family lives on an expansive estate and has nothing but money. Upon discovering their similar taste in music, Tom invites Chris to the opera with his family, where Tom’s sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) is quickly enchanted by Chris’ charms. While a love between Chris and Chloe blossoms, Chris feels strongly attracted to Tom’s American fiancée Nola (Scarlett Johansson). And this secret desire might shatter the new happiness and stability Chris finds marrying Chloe and being provided with a high-paying job at his father-in-law’s (Brian Cox) firm.

Match Point may well be director Woody Allen’s most unusual film to date, and that’s saying something. Incidentally, it’s the film’s seemingly conventional storyline that makes the film so different from Allen’s previous work (the average Allen film, according to the cliché, is a funny piece of social-critique set in New York): Match Point is a thriller, none the more so after one of the film’s characters decides to take drastic measures (involving a gun, police and a criminal investigation) to resolve the entanglements the movie’s first half meticulously spun up. Two factors prevent the movie from being the everyday detective story the premise sounds like: the fact that Allen still goes about painting an analysis of social classes and the way the film’s themes - calmly established in the beginning - provide a brilliant pay-off when all the parts suddenly fit together in the end like in a jigsaw puzzle.

It’s the motif of ‘luck’ that opens the film, with Rhys-Meyer’s character Chris explaining his philosophy on how much in life happens by chance, illustrating his point with the analogy of a tennis ball that hits the top of the net and, for a split second, could go either way, either winning you the point by falling on your opponent’s half, or dropping back to your side and losing it for you. And it is indeed a series of almost random chances that enables Chris’ social ascension from a working class boy who is used to climbing the ladder of life with nothing but his hands to a rich family’s darling (loved by wife and father-in-law almost equally) who gets readily pulled up the rest of the way.

Chris’ life mirrors that of a fairy-tale. He weds a woman who genuinely loves and admires him, his father-in-law opens door after door for him, providing him with a small spot in the company at first, then paying for business courses and forming him into the head of the department in what seems like no time at all. But in spite of having gained all this happiness (and amassed quite a bit of wealth), there’s always that little bit of ‘more’ that Chris wants, that bit of danger and suspense now eradicated from his new life with the Hewetts. This comes in form of Nola, Chris’ brother-in-law’s sensual American girlfriend - and who better to portray the Siren these days than Scarlett Johansson?

Although some of their dialogue comes across as stilted as if it came straight out of George Lucas’ Attack of the Clones (”we can’t do this”, “this doesn’t lead to anywhere”), the two youngsters Rhys-Meyers and Johansson play off eachother to great effect. Every scene they share is full of a tension that either results in lust or anger, and Nola in particular can get very vivid at times. It’s clear from the first encounter between Nola and Chris that the character disposition cannot function in this constellation, and watching how the criss-crossing relationships are set up and then resolved is like observing a train wreck in slow motion. Everything gets gradually worse, but you’re too shocked to look away.

You cannot for the life you imagine how the characters will ever get out of this mess. It’s a tribute to Woody Allen’s vast writing experience and good eye for structuring how one or two twists at the end (at which point you’ll notice just how much chance does factor in) can smoothly bring the plot to a satisfactory end point, without a forced cop-out. It is important to note that Allen’s approach is an unmoralizing one: there are no black and white characters, no heroes or villains, no virtues unbalanced by vices, no morality, no justice. Instead, there is symmetry, and a great deal of integrity from the director towards his own writing.

Match Point is funny at times, suspenseful at others (you can’t help but marvel at how brilliantly Allen deconstructs various thriller clichés), but always engrossing. It may be Woody Allen’s most accessible movie to date, but that circumstance in no way detracts from the film’s quality and might just be working in its favor, attracting a broader audience (which can well do with some intelligent cinema these days) and putting it in the spotlight for this film season’s awards. Plaudits well deserved, Match Point is a success, and I for one am glad to have seen it.

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