There are shadows of Dostoevsky, I suppose (at least, there are frequent, unsubtle references to Dostoevsky littered throughout), and much is made of the opera music we hear on the soundtrack, although only the most urbane audiences will appreciate the arias he's picked. It's not the intellectual depth of Match Point that's attractive so much as the semblance of intellectual depth (Allen probed much deeper in 1989's Crimes and Misdemeanors, and if this is a 3 1/2-star movie, then that's, what, a seven-star accomplishment?). Woody's a master wordsmith, and here he's crafted a bit of audience-friendly fare that's smart without feeling exclusionary. It's a portrait of elite society — and the hangers-on who wish to penetrate it — made in an surprisingly accessible way.

It helps that the movie is so damn sexy (a word I never thought I'd use to describe one of Allen's films). Where his other movies seem to sulk in mothball browns, Match Point glows with a radiant gold light (embellished by the trailer makers, but noticeable all the same). That new look owes in part to the fact that he's brought aboard a new production designer, Jim Clay, after a decades-long collaboration with Santo Loquasto. But it's also a conscious decision on Allen's part, who has, at last, cast a film without an on-screen analogue. Still, one can't help but recognize moments of Allen's characteristically candid personal experience within the broader context (a personal favorite involves a domestic debate in which Rhys-Meyers needles Mortimer into canceling their evening plans so they can go to the movies with Johansson instead).

Watching Match Point, you feel as if you've stepped into one of those posh ads (you know, the ones that outnumber the articles in most Condé Nast magazines) where well-groomed young people lounge about idly in designer clothes and perfectly pressed slacks. It's an aspirational world not without its charms, and most audiences, like Chris Wilton (Rhys-Meyers' character), can't help but feel an outsider to such casual comforts. That makes the dashing young social climber all the easier to identify with, as in a particularly well-taken restaurant scene in which Wilton insists on ordering a modest chicken dish while those around him flippantly suggest he try the something-or-other with truffles.

Such a shrewd character study actually bears more in common with Patricia Highsmith's Ripley tales than anything out of Dostoevsky and marks a nice corollary with the Matt Damon movie of a few years back. How quickly Wilton comes to depend on the lifestyle he's arranged for himself — and how outrageous the lengths he's willing to go to protect it. The big difference here is the fact that Wilton passively lets things get out of hand, allowing "luck" to excuse his own avarice. But he has a point. I've just taken a new job (this could very well be the last of my Premiere.com reviews), and luck had just as much to do with it as anything. But if there's something to be said for luck, it's that one has to make himself available to it. You don't win the lottery by not playing, just as you don't land the opportunity of your dreams by locking yourself indoors. And Wilton, like Woody, knows how to play the game.

[as featured on Premiere.com]