Entertainment

10:48 AM CDT on Friday, April 28, 2006

By TOM MAURSTAD / The Dallas Morning News

The most noteworthy aspect of the DVD release of Woody Allen's Match Point is not what it includes, but what it doesn't. It's just the movie and the usual navigation features.

Given the pointless padding that so much of what is trumpeted as bonus features turns out to be, this might not be the grievous shortcoming that it reflexively seems with most releases. But in this instance, it is.

In our super-sized society, it's worth remembering that more is not always better, that two discs are only better than one if that second disc contains something worth watching. And with most overstuffed DVD packages, it doesn't. So there could be something admirably restrained, even respectful about a release that doesn't play to our basest consumer instincts, that trusts us to recognize a junk-free product is more attractive than one festooned with time-wasting trinkets. Sometimes nothing is better than something.

But that's not what's going on with this particular movie. Based on Mr. Allen's previous, similarly spare DVD releases, not to mention his frequently confessed aversion to change or anything he perceives to be gimmicky, it seems more likely that the lack of bonus features is an expression of his distrust or disdain for a "new" medium. It speaks to his adherence to a classical treatment of his films as stand-alone and inviolate works. It is what it is, and that's all there is.

Then again, the lack of features could just be a crass, and increasingly common, strategy on the part of the studio (in this case, DreamWorks), to wring some upfront sales out of fans before coming back in a few months with a two-disc "special edition" that contains all of the features that should have been there in the first place.

Either way, it shortchanges consumers. DVDs are an increasingly important and distinct medium; more importantly, for a growing number of people, they are the primary platform for watching movies. And the fact is that bonus features are an essential component of the "DVD experience." People want and expect the behind-the-scenes interviews and commentaries and the additional level of insight and interaction that DVDs provide. Filmmakers who resist this desire and distributors who try to manipulate run the risk of angering and alienating the audience they both depend on.

And that's a scenario only exacerbated by the fact that this is a movie that would both reward and be enhanced by some bonus-feature action. There are so many levels of debate created by Match Point and its story of love and lust, adultery and violence, wealth and greed, luck and fate. The noir-styled story of a handsome but poor tennis instructor (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who marries the rich girl (Emily Mortimer) while seducing her brother's sexy girlfriend (Scarlett Johansson) was widely hailed by critics as a return to form for the sputtering Woodster and garnered an Oscar nomination for original screenplay. Watching it in the intimacy of your preferred DVD setting only intensifies the questions it raises.

Is it a great film or a mediocre melodrama? Is it really a return to form for Woody Allen or just the first movie he's made in a long time that hasn't completely stunk? And what about the way the audience's awareness of Mr. Allen's private life can't help but inform its reaction to his public art? And so on.

It would have been great to hear the writer-director talk about any of this, or shooting in London and using opera instead of filming in New York and using jazz. Or the actors' thoughts on their characters (let's hear from Ms. Johansson about Nola's self-destructive drive) or, even, a couple of film critics offering a thumbs-up/down debate.

Instead we have nothing, which, in this case, is less than something.

E-mail tmaurstad@dallasnews.com

Match Point

B-Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode and Brian Cox. Directed by Woody Allen. R (violence, sexual content, adult situations). 124 mins. $29.99.