Match Point vs Happy Endings

The score for Match Point has all the pops, skips and static of old vinyl LPs, as if Woody Allen said “action”, and then put the needle on the record. Every time a new song started, I noticed, and it put me in mind of Woody playing his favorite songs for a friend. Match Point comes across the same way: it seems not so much like a Woody Allen movie, but rather like a story Woody Allen might relate to friends at a party. Or, even better, like a story a Woody Allen character might relate to other Woody Allen characters, in some classic Woody Allen New York apartment, with those classic records playing in the next room. Match Point has the feel of a classy urban legend, the kind of stuff that got Allen’s characters in so much trouble in his underrated Manhattan Murder Mystery.

Match Point stars Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Chris, a former low-ranked tennis player, and current country club tennis pro. He’s well aware of the class differences between him and his clients, but dreams of a better life, and is soon invited to the opera by one of his students, Tom (Matthew Goode), who is ridiculously Movie Rich, and is seated behind Tom’s sister Chloe, who is ridiculously Movie Sweet and volunteers to take Chris on a cultural tour of London. They begin dating, and they seem compatible enough (any mental effort you make trying to make Chloe into a patsy or pushover or Plain Jane just won’t work, because Emily Mortimer is smart and pretty and gives such a quirky, quick-witted performance, I’m tempted to call her the British Parker Posey), and the entire family loves Chris, so his theories about the importance of luck are about to be validated.

At one of those croquet-playing yard parties that happen in movies, but in real life would result in no one being able to get their cars out when it’s time to go and you finding glasses and bottles outside for the next six months, Chris meets Nola, and should know she’s trouble immediately, and not just because she’s playing ping-pong dressed like a slutty off-duty nurse. No, it’s more to do with the fact that she’s played by Scarlett Johansson, as the crossroads between Marilyn Monroe (Yes. I like. Continue.), Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex (Interesting. I’m listening.), and Alex from Fatal Attraction (It’s just money, Chris. Maybe you can pick up a shift at a smaller club?)

And of course, Nola and Chris flirting isn’t just a bad idea because he’ll probably marry Chloe; it’s also dangerous because Nola’s engaged to Tom. Nola is an American actress, and she’s not particularly ambitious about it, and she’s perhaps not talented enough to make a go of it anyway, so she’s not exactly prime daughter-in-law material, especially if you’re British Movie Rich, and looking for heirs.

And Rhys-Meyers and Johansson have the same lips, exactly, and they just happen to be out in that rainy wheat field, and hey, what if maybe she’s less Alex Cross Crazy, and more Ricci? And the Marilyn thing is still happening? And so, one of the more illicit Woody Allen movie affairs begins (and remember, this is the guy that cast himself opposite Juliette Lewis, Julia Roberts, Mariel Hemingway and Helena Bonham Carter; dude knows from illicit.). I think some viewers think of Woody Allen as perhaps out of touch with modern moviemaking, or even modern living (which is largely why I like him so much), but Match Point, despite its vinyl soundtrack and dialogue that would be comfortable in virtually any era of the past century, feels vibrantly current. There’s a scene in an art gallery that feels ripped from Closer, in a good way; and the detectives brought in at the end simultaneously poke fun at noir P.I.s, the contrived wrap-ups of certain Alfred Hitchcock movies, and any number of Law and Order players who need an impossible-to-get answer between the third and fourth commercial breaks.

There’s an obvious Mr. Ripley comparison to make for Chris, with his sly moves to become rich and his devious attempts to stay that way (I’ve avoided mentioning the devious here, but it’s in the movie, trust me), but Chris’s schemes are not as grand, fun or mean-spirited as The Talented Mr. Ripley’s (and neither is Match Point). However, there’s a coldness—it’s not so much a coldness as a false warmth—to the proceedings that help Match Point play like a thriller, when the bulk of it is such a well-mannered British drama, you could logically make an afternoon out of this and the more traditionally Woody Allen-esque Brit comedy Love Actually.

Ah, but nastiness lurks in Match Point. We know it’s going to. There’s too much sex and flirting and drunk Scarlet Johanssons for there not to be dark corners and shady dealings and lies. Crimes and misdemeanors, if you will. Match Point takes its own sweet time to bring the excitement, and whether or not Chris gets the comeuppance for his greed and eventual crimes is for the patient to find out. The tension is heavy in those final moments, as Chris (and perhaps Woody Allen himself) lives his point that it’s better to be lucky than good. That other characters in the movie have been both lucky and good (and unlucky and bad, for that matter) is beside the point.

That same philosophy governs much of Happy Endings, which has so many lies and schemes Match Point’s Chris would need a little pocket chart to keep up. Of course, it also tries for a little sweetness, and on certain kinds of movie nights, that’s just not what we’re after. Still, the bad outweighs the good, behavior-wise, helping the good outweigh the bad otherwise.

Happy Endings is episodic in a way that would lend itself nicely to one of those Showtime series I’ve never seen. The least of the episodes still features another smart character turn from Laura Dern, so it’s not like it can be completely written off. The other storylines are more compelling and funny, with Lisa Kudrow being blackmailed into filming a fake documentary (she’s great, and it’s not quite as wacky as it sounds). The real find in Happy Endings, however, is the Match Point-esque love triangle between Maggie Gylennhaal, Tom Arnold and Jason Ritter.

Hey, where you going?

Ritter plays Otis, a drummer in a band that needs him more for his money and huge house than for his drumming. Otis is defensively not gay, in case anyone asks, and proves it by allowing himself to be seduced by his band’s new singer, Jude, who is played by Maggie Gylennhaal in a performance that must be seen to be believed (it’s basically each of the principal Match Point characters combined, plus she sings beautifully.) Jude wiles her way into Otis’s bedroom, and then into that of his rich father, Frank, stay with me here…played by Tom Arnold. I suppose Tom Arnold hovers somewhere around Rob Schneider in your mental list of appealing actors, but something happens in Happy Endings, either scriptwise or Maggie Gylennhaal-wise, or maybe that’s really his house and he’s just super comfortable. Tom Arnold’s Frank is world-weary and smart in a way most of the other characters in Happy Endings aren’t. He loves Jude’s company, but knows what she’s really after, and how, for a time, it’s possibly harmless for both of them to reap the benefits. Besides, the indignities that Chris doles out in Match Point are not exactly Jude’s stock in trade. She winds up turning most of her manipulations on herself, culminating in a scene of uncomfortable honesty between her and Kudrow’s character.

Happy Endings was directed and written by Don Roos, finding a balance between the bitter comedy of his The Opposite of Sex and the gooey laughter-through-tears (my least favorite movie emotion) of Bounce. With a cast of dozens, endless conversations and beautiful homes, Roos has obviously been influenced by Wood Allen. Whether he’s more lucky than good remains to be seen.

Match Point: B
Happy Endings: B-