The Ebert of Forlorn River

I’ve just watched Match Point, written and directed by Woody Allen. I've been less than lukewarm about Woody Allen in my time and I suspect it’s because I’m stupid. I've missed the hilarity in most of his humor and I think he is a snob. It’s Dostoyevsky and Strindberg and La Traviata and of course Freud (whose technique of psychotherapy has been all but discredited and whose theories of "mind" have been hotly disputed by the majority of practitioners for decades except, of course, in Manhattan) and many esoteric allusions we unwashed don’t get.

As for this movie, (here I go again -- I did cross my fingers when I promised in the last post) I’m put off by the cigarette-smoking of Scarlet Johansson (I assume that the blonde who is obviously supposed to be the hot one is she), which is occurring in
scenes with the frequency it did with those containing Humphrey Bogart.*

*(One of my favorite actors, and Americans, ever, died of throat cancer in 1957, two years after the first Surgeon General's report on cigarette smoking and health. Bogie winced a lot on camera from another ailment but he never coughed because of the one ailment that claimed him, to my knowledge. He should have. As for the SG's report, the cig companies claimed for many years afterwards that a "causal relationship between smoking and cancer" (translate: cigarette smoking causes cancer) had never been proved, and we weren't even talking about emphysema then, but scientists have long since trounced the cig companies and put the lie to them.)

As for Scarlet Johansson, you only have to be a male, even an old decrepit one like me, to grant she is good-looking, sexy, and all that jazz. As for her smoking in all those scenes, I recall what it is to kiss and caress a girl whose hair and clothing smell of tobacco smoke, who tastes like an ashtray, who just plain stinks. Sorry, the sexiness goes up in smoke. I too smoked at the time I smooched it up with smoking chicks so I didn't mind as much. (Smoking kills your sense of smell generally before it kills you.)

I had a particularly hard time with the first scene in which she, "Nola," meets "Chris." He is obviously taken with her. But as they stand close she exhales smoke from her nostrils like an old veteran police detective of yesteryear. Is he turned on by that? (Perhaps Woody is.) As for acting, the fewer props the better.

All right. Bloody hell! Bugguh! This bloke is daft on the topic of smoking, eh what? (That little display of Brittania is by way of segueing back to the movie, which is set in London.)

Woody does not act in the movie and, for once, does an admirable job of not insinuating himself into it. (Did I say that in my opinon he has a big ego? But he's of course no worse than John Wayne. Being a narcissist goes with being the hero of your own movies, and if you are talented enough to make movies, I suppose you've a perfect right to make yourself a demigod.)

Allen has written a fine screenplay. It has what the writer and teacher of fiction, John Gardner, called "profluence," which means it's presented in such a way that you want to know what happens next. It's a "page-turner."

I read the review by Roger Ebert and he said that "everybody in it is rotten," and I think that's a little harsh, but I do agree that there aren't too many likable characters in it. What keeps your interest is your hope that the ones who indeed deserve retribution do get their just deserts. Dostoyevsky is invoked and Crime and Punishment definitely comes to mind, if you've read it. I read it decades ago and I still remember the wretch,
"Raskolnikov," and my sympathizing with him and loathing him at once. People are betrayed and crimes are committed in Match Point, and there are twists and turns such that you stick with it to see what finally happens.

One thing that occurred to me after seeing the movie was that there was little humor or attempt at it, and I for one was relieved, because I haven't cared for most of Allen's humor, which I've found to be extremely low-grade ore with few nuggets that evoke even a smile, much less laughter. Psychoanalysis and existentialism are good subjects for irony and spoofing hypocrisy, but Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have far surpassed Woody in irony and spoofing hypocrisy, and they provide belly laughs four nights a week.

Anyhow, I liked the movie and found it to be very entertaining. I still prefer Columbo and Sipowicz for crime drama, and for that matter even Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes -- philistine that I am -- but, Woody, ya done good.

It's worth a looksee, folks.