Match Point: Woody Allen’s Cold, Precise Thriller of Morality and Greed

Woody Allen left New York because he could not find the money to make a film there. The deal he took instead obliged him to shoot in London with a British cast and crew, so he rewrote a script set in New York for an English setting. That accident of financing produced Match Point, a 2005 psychological thriller that runs 124 minutes and stands as one of the strongest things Allen made in the decade.

The film follows Chris Wilton, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a recently retired tennis pro hired as an instructor at an upscale London club. He befriends Tom Hewett, a wealthy club member played by Matthew Goode. Tom’s sister Chloe, played by Emily Mortimer, is smitten with Chris, and they begin dating. At a family gathering, Chris meets Tom’s American fiancée Nola Rice, an aspiring actress played by Scarlett Johansson. The attraction is immediate.

Trailer, via Woody Allen.

Wheat Field, Thunderstorm, Confession

Eleanor Hewett, played by Penelope Wilton, questions Nola’s struggling acting career with open condescension during a gathering at the Hewett country house. Nola leaves the house during a thunderstorm. Chris follows her and confesses his feelings. They kiss and have sex in a wheat field. Nola treats the encounter as a mistake; Chris wants an ongoing affair.

The film then does the thing that makes it worth its runtime. Chris marries Chloe. Tom ends his relationship with Nola after falling in love with someone else. Chloe becomes obsessed with getting pregnant, and Chris acts ambivalent while trying to track Nola down. When he runs into her by chance, the affair restarts.

Pregnancy, Shotgun, a Final Lie

Nola gets pregnant. Chris panics and tells her to get an abortion. She wants them to raise the child together. Chloe suspects an affair; Chris denies it. Nola presses him to divorce Chloe. Chris finds Chloe boring, but he will not give up the career and the affluent life the marriage affords him. He lies to both women.

Nola confronts him outside his apartment and threatens to tell Chloe everything. Chris takes one of his father-in-law’s hunting shotguns and calls Nola, saying he has good news.

The cast around Rhys Meyers and Johansson carries the weight. Brian Cox plays Alec Hewett, Penelope Wilton plays Eleanor, James Nesbitt plays Detective Banner, and Ewen Bremner plays Inspector Dowd. The tagline — “There are no little secrets” — is doing more work than most taglines, because the whole film is about how small a lie can start and how large it can grow.

The British Idiom Argument

Critics in the United States praised Match Point and its English setting and welcomed it as a return to form for Allen. Reviewers in the United Kingdom treated it less favorably, finding fault with the locations and especially the British idiom in the dialogue.

That split is the most interesting thing about the film’s reception, and the British objection is the weaker case. The dialogue problem is real but minor. What matters is that the London setting forces Chris into a class structure he can climb but never own, and that is the engine of the whole plot. Move the story back to New York and the marriage becomes a transaction between equals. In London it is a man buying his way into a family that will always see him as hired help — first as the tennis instructor, then as the son-in-law.

The film deals with morality and greed and explores lust, money and luck. The comparison to Allen’s earlier Crimes and Misdemeanors is fair and widely made, but Match Point is colder. Chris is not tortured by conscience the way the earlier film’s protagonist is. He is practical. That is what makes him frightening.

Here is what the film gets right, ranked:

1. The wheat field scene, which establishes the affair as a mistake Chris will spend the rest of the film refusing to accept.
2. Rhys Meyers’ performance, which keeps Chris likable just long enough for the ending to land.
3. The pregnancy, which turns a passive man into a desperate one without ever making him sympathetic.
4. The British idiom, a genuine flaw that never sinks the film.

Allen was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. That nomination is the correct recognition for the right element. The plot mechanics are what hold Match Point together — the chance encounter, the pregnancy, the shotgun — and each one arrives at the moment the story needs it.

The film is not perfect. The supporting family members are thin, and the ending resolves too neatly for a story this morally serious. But Match Point earns its reputation as a return to form. It is a thriller about a man who wants two lives and discovers he can only afford one.

film review · Jonathan Rhys Meyers · Match Point · psychological thriller · Scarlett Johansson · Woody Allen