• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Scarlett Johansson stars in “Match Point,” directed by Woody Allen. Many aspects of A

This is definitely not your parents’ Woody Allen film.

With “Match Point,” the latest offering from the filmmaker, Allen has departed from many of the conventions of his earlier work. London has replaced the director’s much-beloved New York as the setting. Sensuality has replaced self-deprecation as the definitive element of romance. Opera music has replaced 1930s jazz on the soundtrack. Even Allen’s own screenwriting seems to have been replaced with a story more along the lines of a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel.

Like the Russian author’s classic “Crime and Punishment,” Allen’s film, which opens Dec. 28, offers a probing analysis of the power of greed, passion, arrogance and obsession to lead one toward immorality. Struggling Irish tennis player Chris Wilton, played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, marries the daughter of a wealthy English businessman. Temptation in the form of an American femme fatale soon arises, plunging Wilton into a life where deception, lust and angst coexist with afternoon tea and weekends in the countryside.

Allen has also seemingly found a new muse in actress Scarlett Johansson, who plays the Yankee temptress. The two recently finished filming yet another collaboration – “Scoop,” a light-hearted comedy that will tentatively be released next year – making Johansson the first lead actress to be used by Allen twice in a row since Mia Farrow.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of Woody,” Johansson said. “He’s one of the few directors I’ve always wanted to work for. ... I got to see him each day on the set for two months, which was a joy. It was a dream come true.”

Johansson was quick to stress that she did not draw from any real-life experience for her performance.

“I don’t think of myself as a femme fatale,” she said jokingly. “I’ve never seduced someone and ruined their life – at least as far as I know.”

The bond established between the filmmaker and his new leading lady was apparent on set. While filming a love scene with Meyers in the high grasses of the English countryside, rain poured down on the actress and a crisp wind filled the air. Frantically fleeing the elements after the shot, she sprinted not to a personal assistant or private trailer, but rather the welcoming arms of Allen.

“I ran over to Woody, who gave me a big hug, and I thought, ‘Alright, things are going to be OK,’” Johansson said with a chuckle.

The changes in the filmmaker’s style have resulted in perhaps the most talked-about Allen film in more than a decade, beginning with a well-received screening at the Cannes Film Festival last May, and continuing strong with the current Oscar buzz.

Actress Emily Mortimer, who plays the wife of the tempted tennis player, attributed the film’s strength to Allen’s script.

“It was very arresting to read it,” she said. “You desperately want to know what’s going to happen.”

And with the ending, the film reaches a peak of complexity and emotion reminiscent of the finest 19th-century Russian literature.

“It’s the opposite of a neat conclusion,” Mortimer said. “It’s complete chaos in how it leaves the audience feeling – there’s something almost existential about the ending, although I’m sure (Allen) would balk at such a description. ... He said the whole concept of the film was much less deep than Dostoevsky.”

At least some of Allen’s characteristic self-deprecation has endured.