One critic’s view: ‘Match Point’ is a hit

As I note below, I received an e-mail this morning from Nathan Weinbender , a young Spokane film fan who is highly critical of Woody Allen’s new film, “Match Point” . He hated it, I loved it, and I thought it would be interesting to present each contrasting view.

His is immediately below. Mine follows:

( Note: Spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk. )

Nathan: As always, you have given “Match Point” a lot of thought. And, as always, I admire your desire to think your review through. But I couldn’t disagree with you more.

In fact, I’m in the position that Bob Glatzer often puts me in: I don’t disagree with each of your points so much as simply reject them. You say the first 90 minutes “consist of self-important, pedantic babble,” then add that this seems “odd for a Woody Allen film.” Nathan, one of the biggest problems critics have always had with Allen is that his films are all about characters who spout “self-important, pedantic babble.”

Of course, what makes the best of Allen’s films great is that he holds these characters up for us to examine, often making them look justifiably foolish and, at times, even ignorant (remember the Marshall McLuhan scene in “Annie Hall” ). But “Match Point” is not an ordinary Allen film. In fact, I don’t think there’s been an Allen film like this, in tone anyway, since at least 1989’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and maybe even 1987’s “September.”

That aside, I think the film presents these characters in a way that serves Allen’s intentions just as they should: as principals in a familiar (I’ll mention Hitchcock here for the first time) format – the modern variation on tragedy. I don’t think they’re any more false than any other kind of tragic characters since Sophocles (yeah, we’ve seen tennis players before, most notably with Guy Haines in – here’s that name again – Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” but I hardly think that reduces his lean-and-hungry character to a cliché).

And while someone else might not have been able to pull it off, Jonathan Rhys Meyers certainly made me believe that he was capable of murder ( Jude Law might have done it even better). That his character can kill but not confront his wife is not only believable but it’s part of the film’s overall irony – though, of course, I can see how Allen’s striving for subtext could be seen as a bit of a stretch.

I think, also, that the film plays out just as it should, the slow and deliberate pace of the first two-thirds leading us to the murders, the first of which is shockingly unexpected, the second brilliantly underplayed (imagine how much blood would have flowed had any of today’s young filmmakers shot this film).

And, again for me, the slo-mo sequence involving the ring is right where it should be. It set me up for the fate-takes-a-hand culmination of the police investigation, not to mention what I see as Allen’s overall theme: the cynical view that we all determine the path we take (though not nearly as much as we like to think), and if we’re fortunate enough to have chance on our side, we can get away with anything. All we have to do then is figure out whether we can live with the consequences – a thought that Rhys Meyers’ character no doubt is pondering in that final shot.

I remember way back in 1975, when I was in my mid-20s and full of opinions – though far less smart about film than you are even in your teens – I went to see a movie about mature love . I thought it sucked and told a guy who must then have been about as old as I am now. He disagreed, telling me that I just didn’t understand the emotions that come with age.

I bristled at what he said, just as I imagine you would bristle if I were to say the same thing to you. But the fact remains that there are different ways of seeing things; criticism often depends on point of view (see if you agree with everything that Pauline Kael wrote ), and age often affects our view of any particular art form, especially film. You dislike “Match Point,” while I think it probably is the best film that Allen has made since – well, maybe since “Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Is it a great film? No. But it’s a pretty good one.

I wish Sir Alfred were still around. I’m not sure what he would think. But since “Match Point” is one of the few films worth describing as Hitchcockian, his view likely would make the most sense of all.