Match point

"The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a litte luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose." -- Chris Wilton

The facts are simple - a man is having an affair with a woman. He does not want to break his marriage for this woman. Later he sets up a burglary scene at his mistress's neighbor, then makes it appear that his mistress was shot when the burglar was fleeing the scene. He eventually gets away.

There are two scenes where the ball hits the net: first, when he throws away the wedding ring he robbed off of his mistress's neighbor, it bounces back off the fence at the river, then falls on the bank. second, when the police chief starts to suspect that he could be the murderer, the police find another break-in burglar who by accident found that ring and had it in his pocket when captured.

A regular story of man and woman having an affair is raised to theatrical enjoyment when the whole thread through the movie is but a story teetering on the net. Hearts are grasped and the audience gasp at every turn when the story bounces off of the net. A moment of suspense and great anxiety over where the story and the main character's life will fall make hair stand on its end. Rooting for justice to be upheld, or rooting for the unexpected, I cannot decide. But life imposes no normative value. and the story falls where it so pleases, sometimes appearing as an irony and sometimes a bravery.

The ending ceases to be important in this sense as justice upheld or villains spared, life takes no interest and favors neither. After all, it is just a bounce off of the net. Only in our heart, can justice find refuge and can odds for justice be altered. For better or worse though, there is no guarantee.


Let me remind you a few other memorable quotes from the movie.

Hard work is mandatory despite the fact that luck plays a disproportinately large role in our life and we are scared by the fact that we have no control.

Note - this makes sense, but is somewhat inconsistent. suppose luck alone won't do it. And there is always a role for hard work. Making it mandatory is to say that regardless of the size of the luck, one still cannot succeed without hard work. But the movie suggests that luck alone sometimes can do it - See Tom and Cloe's lives

And why did you hurt me, an innocent bystander? The innocent are sometimes slain to make way for grander schemes.

Note - this is no defense, but an explanation. It is fitting as an answer to the "why" question, but she wants to know more! Or in fact it is a rhetoric question to accuse him of harming someone unrelated to the fiasco at all. Life proves however that such involvement albeit undesirable is unavoidable.

It would be fitting if I were apprehended... and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice - some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning.

Note - He hits the ball right at the net. This is to ask whether life is a pure, positive existence that does not either uphold or undermine justice, which is simply a moral and social construction to enable humans live together in an expansive group.

Sophocles said, "To never have been born is the greatest boon of all."

Note - what a sad view of life and beyond. No wonder Socphocles writes tragedies only.