“God is dead”, declared Friedrich Nietzsche more than 100 years ago, and people today are still trying to convince themselves of that fact. Woody Allan, an avowed atheist, has made a number of films over the years pondering that statement and its implications. A nihilistic worldview, the only possible end result of Nietzsche’s reasoning, is central to many of his stories.
Allan’s newest film, Match Point, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, and Matthew Goode, is another entry into his canon of nihilistic films. There are strong similarities to what many consider Allan’s greatest work, the 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors, although ultimately Match Point ends up being a darker film. One big difference between the two is the lack of traditional Woody Allan humor in Match Point, leading many movie critics to suggest he wanted to give more attention to the questions that have been haunting him, without using humor as a distraction. The protagonists in both films want desperately to believe there is something, or Someone, greater than themselves, some standard to which they are held accountable, while at the same time hoping there truly is not.
Roger Ebert described Crimes and Misdemeanors as “a complaint against God for turning a blind eye on evil.” If we are honest with ourselves, we complain about the same thing. We complain that God ignores evil, we complain that “the rain falls on the just and the unjust” because we think they don’t deserve it, we complain that “life isn’t fair”. So what do we do about it? We can either decide that God does not then exist, that everything happens according to luck with no “higher power” in the picture (the hypothesis behind Match Point), or we can admit that “His ways are higher than our ways”.
Woody Allan once said “If my film makes one more person miserable, I’ll feel I’ve done my job.” In my opinion, we are left with one unavoidable question at the end of Match Point: If God is dead, as Woody Allan wants to believe, what is behind his making of this film? Is he spitting in God’s face? Or is he crying over His grave?
Watch Match Point, pay careful attention to the final scene, and then let me know what you think.