Match Point

A tennis pro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is welcomed into the wealthy family of one of his tutees (Matthew Goode) and is soon given a prominent position within their company and engaged to their needy daughter (Emily Mortimer), all of which is threatened to come crashing down in the aftermath of a heated love affair with his brother-in-law's sultry ex-girlfriend (Scarlett Johansson). Match Point is unlike anything Woody Allen has ever done before (even Crimes and Misdemeanors which explored similar themes and some of his straight dramas which draw a homologous tone) and was probably imbued with new life due to his decision to film abroad and leave NYC for I believe the first time in his career. The result is a haunting, brilliantly thought out, pristinely filmed, philosophically Dostoevskian treatise with Rhys-Meyers excellent, even amusing at points as a sociopath with an answer to every question and Johannson at her most alluring though grating during heightened dramatic scenes. **** out of ****