Rent Match Point (2005)

Woody winner. - Match Point review by Steve

This is the film Woody now describes as his favourite. And at over two hours it's his longest. It was going to be another New York story, but funding from the BBC meant it was rewritten for London (the first of three consecutive films shot there).

It takes the murder story strand from Crimes and Misdemeanours and sets it among a rich family of English financiers. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a former tennis pro from a working class background who marries into their money and finds his hard won acre of paradise threatened by his mistress (Scarlett Johannson) who has become pregnant.

 The move to the UK works well for a story about class and the familiar British cast do a great job of adapting Woody's dialogue to a different voice. The locations are well chosen and there is a strong visual impression of this country as well as its class privileges. Johannson and Meyers make an unusually beautiful combination, though her star charisma rather eclipses his.

The theme of the indifference of fate isn't particularly original, and the film lacks suspense, which makes it a qualified success. The police investigation into Scarlett's murder is very weak. It's a strange film in that I think it's the first he makes that isn't obviously a Woody Allen, which wrongfooted critics who by then had tagged him as merely recycling old devises. It became a box office hit.

Should have watched longer - Match Point review by JD

I watched the first 30 minutes and could stand it no more. A tennis coach is spoilt by an over-privileged family and marries their daughter but covets his brother-in-law's girlfriend. Great stuff if you liked Dallas or Howard's End but this upper-class romantic betrayal stuff is not my thing and I ejected before it got to the crime intrigue. My advice would be to get it either if you like Bronte or skip the first 40 minutes.