Imperfect 'Match'

I finally made it out to see Match Point last weekend, and while I think that Ross Douthat is right to call it a cross between The Talented Mr. Ripley and Crimes & Misdemeanors (both of which are better films), I didn’t find it overly schematized. Ross isn’t alone in complaining that the movie’s deadly finale comes out of left field, and while it’s not exactly telegraphed with the sort of obvious flag-waving that plagues the narratives of most movies, Allen sets up his characters with just enough hints—look at what Chris says about the nature of both hard work and luck in the early dinner scene, and also remember that he’s clearly quite good at managing the complexities of his job—that when the last scenes do roll out, they feel like a revelation the deepest parts of character, not a trick designed to push a theme.

But what really interests me is how Allen has managed to make a movie that is so firmly and clearly not a Woody Allen movie—no stuttering Jewish neurotics here, and yet, when you remove its engraved leather British slip cover, is so very patently just another examination of the same themes and character types that he’s been giving us for thirty years.

There is, of course, the love triangle. The same love triangle that menaces every Allen film, in which characters, typically male, fight over women and kvetch about their own insufferable bouts of indecisiveness. But more importantly, it’s the emotionally fueled love triangle, in which love, as Allen always sees it, is this irresistible force, like a disease or a strong wind.

Allen’s characters are enslaved by their juvenile notion of love as some glittery, oft-fleeting feeling that comes and goes with no real explanation. Melinda and Melinda was far worse in this regard, and as good as Manhattan is, it too is afflicted by this idiotic notion that love just descends from the heavens and then leaves whenever it mysteriously sees fit. Allen, almost certainly in part to rationalize his own weaknesses and unfortunate choices, simply refuses to recognize that love—the real love that keeps marriages together and that builds lasting, positive relationships—is a choice. Not a fuzzy feeling, not a self-serving way to please some momentary whim, but a choice that one makes every day to stay with someone, to serve them and to do it even when it’s difficult or unpleasant. Contrary to Allen’s cosmopolitan view of humans in helpless thrall to love's narcissistic whims, love is a choice to sacrifice the self.

This isn’t just a philosophical point, either. Every time he gives us another preening New York whiner talking about “falling out of love,” he completely hemorrhages any of the dramatic weight in a scene—characters are interesting because of the choices they make in difficult situations, not because of how cleverly they whine.

Match Point also follows up on Allen’s now-familiar, juvenile, utterly nasty view of women. There are, as far as he’s concerned, only three types: the loudmouthed domineering bitch, the cute and vaguely clueless airhead, and the irrational-but-gorgeous emotional wreck—the female devil. Those stereotypes are out in full force in Match Point, and as usual, his male characters are held captive by one or all of them. His movies all exist in an underhandedly matriarchal world in which the men are all impish and indignant, yet continue to let their obsession with the other sex (and sex in general) drive them to self-destructive acts.

To watch his oeuvre (about half of which I’ve seen), you’d think he’d never met a woman who was sweet and fascinatingly intelligent, able to make good decisions and also kindly supportive. Occasionally, he’ll mix it up and give us a domineering female devil, or an irrational, stupid airhead, but generally, his outlook on the fairer species is brutal and sophomoric.