"I like his movies, except for that nervous fella who’s always in ’em…"

You know the “it’s their best work since x” critical argument, right? Like how Rolling Stone will claim that every new album by some any old fart Jann Wenner wants to suck up to is their best work since Exile on Main Street/Layla/Band on the Run/Scary Monsters etc etc. Evidently, these claims tend to evaporate about two months later. And they don’t really tell you anything about the work in question. To say something is Dylan’s best album since Blood on the Tracks (which I think was routinely claimed of every subsequent album he recorded in more than 48 hours), even if it’s defensible, can be merely trivially true (Slow Train Coming, Oh Mercy), be describing a legitimately good album that still doesn’t remotely approach the album it’s being compared to (Time Out Of Mind), or be describing what would have been at least a worthy follow up (Love and Theft.) So when a Woody Allen movie is described as his best in many years, I pretty much ignore it.

Allen guaranteed that some people would call Match Point his best since Crimes and Misdemeanors by…pretty much remaking it, albeit with a younger mistress and bourgeois user. And the self-plagiarism is begging you to mock him: there’s the scene where the mistress threatens to call the wife! The ethical discussions with imagined characters! But the thing is, it’s not like the existentialist anguish was original the first time either; it’s what you do with the archetypical plot that matters. And damned if he doesn’t pull it off. It really is a return to form.

Granted, it ain’t Crimes and Misdemeanors. Not only because the plot is inevitably better when it’s used the first time, but the first one had some great comic sequences as well, and the multiple plot strands added resonance to each. But that’s his best movie: a movie needn’t rise to that level to be one of the best of the year. And Match Point is a gripping story, well-told. The acting is crucial: Rhys-Meyers handles the central role very well (and thank God he didn’t cast himself; even though the movies sometimes survived anyway, his relationships with young beautiful actors have been creepy as hell for decades, and he’s a limited dramatic actor in any case.) Johansson deserves her plaudits too, but I thought the real glue was provided by the dignity of the underrated Emily Mortimer, and Bryan Cox is alwys welcome. And, in addition, Allen has continued to become a more virtuositic director even when his writing has faded; with a decent script, you notice the clever camera placements and consistently good performances and perfect pacing. (My implied comparison with Bowie in the Stones is unfair, of course–Allen, largely hidden by his personal issues, did a lot of very good work in the 90s; his decline his much more recent than is generally acknowledged.) And it also has the courage of its darkness. In my view, Allen is at his best when he’s a little mean; I like uneven but scabrously funny pictures like Husbands and Wives and Deconstructing Harry much more than well-meaning and well-executed but instantly forgettable stuff like Sweet and Lowdown. The Lloyd Webber element of the climax is a particularly nice touch; not only is it perfect for Chloe, but his fuddy-duddy aesthetic snobbery is at least aimed at a worthy target this time. So, while it won’t rank at the top of his canon, for once the claims of a comeback are justified.