Scarlett Johansson was scorching hot in this.
I mean she pretty much always looks great but hot damn she was beautiful in Match Point.
shareNot just beautiful, but truly erotic. I agree. The way Allen shoots her and lets her performance come through really helps with that, and it makes us buy into the story more. It's stuff like this that makes MP one of my favourite Allen films of all time.
Sometimes I think about this film in juxtaposition with Under the Skin. If you haven't seen it, at one point in that movie Johansson is completely naked. But the context in that movie makes that moment far less sexually charged than scenes in Match Point.
Oh I've seen Under the Skin. A good movie but yes as you say it lacks sensuality by design given she's an alien. Very blunt and matter of fact with it's nudity.
The sensual romanticism that is conjured up in something like Match Point does make the scenes sexier. You don't see Johansson naked in Match Point but you don't need to.
I really like Under the Skin. The scene we're discussing, where she's looking in the mirror, I found to be full of an almost naivete in her growing understanding of herself. It was a nice moment in a movie that made me think a lot.
I couldn't agree more with your final statement: no nudity necessary. Filmmakers should take heed. I find that modern filmmakers can sometimes fall into a kind of "anything goes" trap where they can just have characters get naked and say, "This is sexy." I'd contrast that to Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not or Johansson in this film. I'm not against filmmakers using the nude form, but these days they often rely on things like nudity, swearing, and extreme violence in lieu of actually thinking about how to artfully weave their tales.