Match Point
Jas and I went and saw the Woody Allen project, Match Point, at the Charles last night. I don't know if it's a project as much as it is just another British movie, but it sure wasn't the usual Woody. It was dark and Hitchcockian in many ways. There was murder, deceit, loveless marriages, and an affair. The dialogue was witty and the scenes were shot very well.
The scene I enjoyed the most was at the end where the camera follows a ring flying through the air just as we followed a tennis ball in the opening segment. The tennis ball hits the net and bounces back and signifies a loss and the main characters place in life. The ring at the end also bounces back but ends up being a win and also signifies wrong doings with a twist that his place in life was the happenstance of evil gone lucky. The scenes were meant to illustrate luck and the chaos theory. The underlying premise besides a love affair, murder, and marriage was that no matter what we do in life, no matter how hard we work, plan, save, or love that it doesn't really have any true outcome on how we really end up living.
Basically, the outcomes and choices of our lives are made more by things we can't control then by things we can control. It's an interesting point. It's also one not easily proven. You choose to have sex and then have a baby. You choose to go to work and not gamble or do drugs. You choose to shower. But, what you don't choose is whether or not the mother of your child had AIDS or a miscarriage. You don't choose to get into a car accident on your way to work or to die in an elevator collapse. You don't choose to slip in the shower or burn yourself because the dishwasher was turned on and the water became scolding hot. I found it all quite interesting.
The other part of the movie I enjoyed was the interaction of the classes. Jas and I were talking about it and I think we agreed that the Uber rich are genuinely nasty and rigid towards each other but accomplish it in such an airy, comfortable way that either no one takes offense or no one really cares. For example:
"Charles you look like a drunken sailor tipping in a Phillipino hump hump bar."
"Well old man at least I don't smell of booze and sleep with the maid."
"Touché, old boy."
I think they can do this because basically the Ubers have so much less to worry about. They never look at a 500 dollar check and wonder how many times they have to eat pasta the next month. And the poor in that conversation, which would be our main character Chris, would choose to either take a very high moral path or snap back. Lucky for Chris he took the moral path.
"Chris you look like a drunken sailor tipping in a Phillipino hump hump bar."
"Well, I have to say that my choices in life have only lead me to the path to be able to learn more."
"Touché, old boy."
Anyway, I found the way Woody depicted the underprivileged walking the high wire of Upper Society to be dead on.
