光影筆記本５４／Match Point

I am never a big fan of Woody Allen, but I feel Match Point did show some good directing work by this director, although many critics focus on finding faults in Allen's presentation of some London scenes. They say it's just tourist level.

The story itself is pretty straightforward: an Irish tennis player from a lower class comes to live in London and tries to make a difference to his own life by marrying a rich man's daughter but passionately falls for another sexy goddess therefore he has this giant task to solve.

It could have developed into a much more complex story, but it didn't. It just remains plain and leaves a lot of space for repetitions. The same dilemmas, the routined sex with his wife, the fiery sex with his mistress, then all the phonecalls from the neglected one, and the annoying enquiries toward the doubtful husband...

Cliches or not, watching the film, at some point my anger was a bit roused: oh, men could be such liars! Is it just about sex to him? I thought he was in love with her, beautifully 'love-at-the-first-sight' kind of crush, but, no?

The main characters do show some good acting at times and the audience is probably affected by the sense of guilt and struggle felt by Chris, the man who clearly is stuck and is forced to choose between lust (is that all?) and money (is that all?)

Disappointingly, the dialogues are occasionally awkward, not on purpose, therefore it is obvious that the American director tries to speak in British but probably he could have had consulted some local experts on this issue. The result is Woody Allen probably could please only his loyal fans and his audience elsewhere might find it refreshing to see a London setting in a Woody Allen film, but I don't think it can ever get a good review from reviewers here in Britain, not just because the characters are speaking in American-British-English (just imagine how odd that could be), which will always be teased by the locals, but because the film is in lack of British humour of any possible sort.