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A Favorite Movie

An ambitious young tennis coach reads Dostoyevsky on the weekend. He--let's call him Jonathan--has a good deal on his mind. His client notes this.

Some luck: The client is attached to an extraordinarily wealthy family. The client's father--let's call him Brian Cox--needs a new well-paid worker. Jonathan suddenly has a high-prestige job.

Jonathan also has a girlfriend--Brian's daughter--who has a certain feigned meekness that can be wearying. Instead of proposing a tennis game, she feels the need to dance around the issue, until someone near her actually guesses her intentions and states them *for* her. But the meekness conceals a secret steeliness, and this will become clear, in time; let's call the meek character Emily Mortimer.

A final twist: Jonathan, attached to Emily, actually finds that he prefers the company of his pseudo-sister-in-law, Scarlett. Because Scarlett is part of the family, she is continuously in Jonathan's orbit. Double-crossing ensues. Comedy also happens: Jonathan doesn't want to be alone with Emily, so he proposes a family outing to the movies (knowing that "family" means "Scarlett"). Jonathan can't baldly state why he wants to follow the movie plan, and the resulting discomfort is enjoyable and true to actual life.

Many people admire "Match Point," and I think it's because of the briskness and ease of the plotting. The musical "Gypsy" has a continuous, invisible tug of change: Louise ascends subtly, quietly, from start to finish, until she basically runs the world. Something similar happens in "Match Point." Scarlett begins with all the power, and we watch the power slip--almost imperceptibly--from her hands. By contrast, Emily seems so small at first, but, over two hours, she fights and fights, and, finally, she emerges triumphant. (Maybe this movie has a bit of DNA from "Game of Thrones.")

Another moment of sneaky humor: My husband and I have a favorite line, and it's when loathsome Jonathan can't quite tell his wife he is leaving her. "I can't tell Emily AT NIGHT!" he says, to Scarlett. "If I told her AT NIGHT, then she WOULDN'T SLEEP!" Ah, human weakness. Who can't relate to that?

I had a sense that this movie was "rewatchable"--it hovered in the back of my head for several years--and I'm sticking by my feeling. I had a fine time revisiting "Match Point."
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