Match Point (2005)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 207
Fresh: 159 | Rotten: 48
Woody Allen's sharpest film in years, Match Point is a taut, philosophical thriller about class and infidelity.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 45
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 6
Woody Allen's sharpest film in years, Match Point is a taut, philosophical thriller about class and infidelity.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 248,175
Movie Info
A clandestine love affair sends one man's charmed life into a tailspin in this dark, disturbing drama written and directed by Woody Allen, his first film set and shot in Great Britain and one his few films sans any humor. Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is an Irish tennis player with an impoverished background. Just accomplished enough to make his way onto the professional circuit, but not skilled enough to be a consistent winner, he now works as an instructor at a London tennis club. The
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Cast
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Scarlett Johansson
Nola Rice -
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Chris Wilton -
Emily Mortimer
Chloe Hewett Wilton -
Matthew Goode
Tom Hewett -
Brian Cox
Alec Hewett -
Penelope Wilton
Eleanor Hewett -
Ewen Bremner
Inspector Dowd -
James Nesbitt
Detective Banner -
Rupert Penry-Jones
Henry -
Margaret Tyzack
Mrs. Eastby -
Selina Cadell
Margaret -
John Fortune
John the Chauffeur -
Gilly Gilchrist
Hewetts' Friend -
Anthony O'Donnell
Custodian -
Colin Salmon
Ian -
Simon Kunz
Rod Carver -
Mark Gatiss
Ping-Pong Player -
Steve Pemberton
Detective Perry -
Paul Kaye
Estate Agent -
Scott Handy
Hewetts' Friend -
Zoe Telford
Samantha -
Janis Kelly
"La Traviata" Perfor... -
Rose Keegan
Carol -
Toby Kebbell
Policeman -
Georgina Chapman (II...
Nola's Co-Worker -
Geoffrey Streatfield
Alan Sinclair -
Alexander Armstrong
Mr. Townsend -
Alan Oke
"La Traviata" Perfor... -
Philip Mansfield
Waiter -
Mary Hegarty
"Rigoletto" Performe... -
Patricia Whymark
Telephone Operator -
Miranda Raison
Heather -
Nikki Inwood
Stand-In -
Steve Morphew
Stand-In
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All Critics (217) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (159) | Rotten (48) | DVD (20)
... a nifty little crowd pleaser ...
Top CriticMatch Point isn't one of his truly great films, like Annie Hall or Manhattan, but it's a very good one; a sign that a career that seemed stalled is purring along once more.
Match Point is airless, repetitive.
Match Point has a coiled, taut energy that's unusual for Allen.
In every scene, Allen's direction is unflinchingly clear-eyed, and it's a pleasure being walked through London at the same unhurried pace that he's taken through Manhattan all these years.
Johansson finds her own speech rhythms in Allen's arch dialogue, and in the process, gives his film a quality that his recent work has often lacked, the recognizable flutter of a heart beat behind the façade of the character.
But, perhaps, the greatest parallel between Woody's Match Point and Hitch is duality. It's a brilliant device.
This lean, mean, surprisingly sultry thriller about fate, luck, greed and guilt is Woody Allen's best since "Mighty Aphrodite." Plus, it boasts a vintage-Allen metaphor of a bobbling tennis ball that, in a great gotcha scene, becomes a damning motif.
There's no ground here that Allen hasn't gone over before, but as a treatment of upper crust mores and, eventually, as a thriller, it's compulsively watchable and generally well acted.
Allen merely regurgitates his shrunken vision in veddy-British padding
Just when you were about to give up on Woody Allen, he reinvents himself with a taut tour de force of a film that is unquestionably the best thing he's done in decades.
... retools the resolution of Crimes and Misdemeanors so its hero, instead of losing his grasp on morality, never even had a hold on morality in the first place.
Proves to be an intriguing enough adventure, provided you haven't seen Crimes and Misdemeanors and don't mind rooting for a despicable, amoral philanderer.
Match Point proves that Allen, at 70 years old, is very much still in the game.
Extremely disappointing.
The acting is as impeccable as Remi Adefarasin's lensing is gorgeous.
This is Allen at his best. And with three Oscars at home already, and seventeen other nominations, that is saying a lot.
His most absorbing picture in years.
What makes Match Point, a coolly deliberate murder mystery from Woody Allen, so startling is that it feels as if the director himself has been done away with.
A filmmaker out of touch with his own neuroses, making a final bid for recognition by exacerbating lives beyond his reach.
The plotting lacks a necessary sense of tragic propulsion; it feels dutifully schematic, its ironies polite and tidy when they should be bitter and merciless.
By developing his characters so superficially, Allen makes it impossible to feel the depth of the horror that he is clearly aiming for.
Allen back in shape since a really long time
Game, set, match ... Allen wins with slow-moving English drama ...
Woody Allen regresa a su mejor forma con un oscuro drama sobre la ambición, el deseo, la obsesión, y el papel que juega la suerte en el destino de las personas.
It all looks suspiciously like the kind of movie Allen used to make fun of 30 years ago.
Audience Reviews for Match Point
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Movies Like Match Point
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- Chris Wilton: The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.
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- Nola Rice: He saw me across the room and he honed in on me like a guided missile.
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