Match Point (Woody Allen) - 2005

This is Woody's movie about "luck."  The title refers to a close tennis match wherein the final winning point could go either way depending upon the luck of the players.  This story involves a young tennis pro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who lucks into a job and a marriage within a wealthy family.  Although he lusts for the fiance (Scarlett Johansson) of his wealthy friend, Meyers struggles with his desires and eventually chooses the life of luxury.  Sometimes it seems that crime does pay, if you are lucky.  This has been the most successful of Woody's movies in which he did not appear.  The cinematography is excellent and Woody's script is fine as always but it helps to have Scarlett Johansson on screen with the promise of an "R" rating.  [JAM 3/2/2011]

["... I read an article someone sent me that a Catholic priest wrote about the movie.  It was very nice, but he made a wrong assumption.  The assumption was: if, as I say, life is meaningless and chaos and random, then anything goes and nothing has any meaning and one action is as good as the next.  And it immediately leads someone with a religious agenda to the conclusion, Well you can murder people and get away with it if that's what you want to do.  But that's a false conclusion.  What I'm really saying -- and it's not hidden or esoteric, it's just clear as a bell -- is that we have to accept that the universe is godless and life is meaningless, often a terrible and brutal experience with no hope, and that love relationships are very, very hard, and that we still need to find a way to not only cope but lead a decent and moral life.  People jump to the conclusion that what I'm saying is that anything goes, but actually I'm asking the question: given the worst, how do we carry on, or even why should we choose to carry on?  ... Anyhow, religious people don't want to acknowledge the reality that contradicts their fairy tale.  And if it is a godless universe, they're out of business.  The cash flow stops." Conversations With Woody Allen - February 2006]