Match Point

If you thought Woody Allen was back after his early 2005's great tragicomedy Melinda & Melinda, you were so wrong. Now Match Point is a comeback to form, a work of art and just a tremendous film I didn't know Woody was able to give create. It's not amazingly original like to get an Award for it, but that because a few (and maybe just 2) other original scripts are better, but it's very nomination worthy.

Match Point is a thriller, a romantic thriller. It's very smart and leaves a couple questions unanswered and that are to tertiary you won't even notice them on your first viewing (at least it took me more than one).
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a young retired tennis player who was a pro but left the tour not because of injuries, but because he knew he couldn't be on the same level as Agassi, he says. He also mentions Greg Rusedski but I didn't he meant it 'not even as Rusedski' who was obviously not in the same level as Andre. And way to go Woody, mentioning 2 players who are no longer playing, but hey, he made the movie last year and at least Agassi was still active so the whole thing is maybe 25% ok.
Anyway, sorry for the tennis talk (though tennis is part of the movie), but Chris is now a tennis instructor in a big name club and there is where he meets Matthew Goode's Tom Hewett, with he hits it off (not in a gay way though it kind of looks like it) right from the start due to their love for opera, and after meeting the family Chris gets invited to their country house where he starts a relationship with Tom's sister Chloe, played by the delightful Emily Mortimer, whose part in that disaster called Formula 51 is pretty much the only low point of her career (2005's Dear Frankie was excellent btw).
But that's not all, as in that same visit to the country house Chris meets Nola Rice, a young American with whom he immediately flirts, the tension is palpable, right there he learns that Nola is Tom's fiance, a failed actress with a very low self esteem when somebody talks about her career.

This whole thing with Nola is a problem, because Chris will eventually marry Chloe (who gets immediately crazy about having a baby right after getting married) but he has Nola always in mind. An affair in imminent, but before that we get one of the best scenes in the movie, and there are many, but in this one, Chris and Nola walk into each other on the street and go to a bar for a drink after one of Nola's blown auditions.
They are sitting at a table, drinking, she's smoking, and they are talking about the effect Nola has on men, and how sexy she is, and then they talk about their respective partners, how they met and if it was love at first sight. "He was handsome", she says about Tom. "She's sweet", he says about Chloe. And they stare at each other, and that leaves the door very open for what will happen later, which they will spend the entire movie trying to keep hidden from the other members of the family.

But this is a thriller, and that comes when it gets increasingly difficult for Chris to keep up with Nola on one side and the Hewett's on the other. After all, getting married to Chloe means that he's very well liked by mom Eleanor (Shaun's mom Penelope Wilton) and also by mighty rich dad Alec (a back to his normal shape Brian Cox). Chris gets an easy and high paid job, a car and chauffer, secretary, expense accounts, and of course the access to the country house, which has all the commodities he never had. Can he give all this up for Nola? Tough choice.

The tour de force performance everybody talks about (including the award givers) is that of the amazingly hot Scarlett Johansson as Nola. She's sexy and beautiful, and just perfect, but Nola gets difficult and clingy towards the end and so she loses likeability. And Rhys-Meyers' performance is more than great in the lead, especially in the gripping and highly tense scenes at the end when the movie reaches its higher levels of greatness.
But there's also the Woody Allen tough of course. He found a very nice spot in London that works just like his high class Manhattan neighborhoods he always used (remember that he got tired of it seems and decided to go across the Atlantic and make movies in England and at least one in Spain as of right now). It's London of course, but it's Woody's London.
And the music is also his touch, the beautiful opera sound every now and then even when it's not featured.
The acting, the writing and everything else, Match Point is what Woody is capable of these days, and it's magnificent.