Concepts of luck, lust, love and legalities are explored in Woody Allen’s new drama “Matchpoint.”

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Welton, an ex-tennis pro trying to earn a decent living by instructing the game. It’s instructing at an exclusive country club where he meets Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode), a handsome, well-off young man from a very well respected and wealthy British family.

Chris and Tom become fast friends and soon the Hewitt family is grooming him to become the next success story.

The family also gives him another profitable gain as well – their daughter Chloe played by Emily Mortimer.

However, Chris becomes infatuated with Scarlett Johansson’s character, Nola Rice, a seductive beauty who is engaged to Tom. Nola’s carefree nature and unstable acting career causes rifts between her and the Hewitt family. Chris marries Chloe before he hears the news that Tom and Nola have split.

This unlucky circumstance causes Chris to become quickly bored with his wife and only more infatuated by the idea of a passionate relationship with Nola. Chris runs into Nola at the Tate Modern while with Chloe. He slyly gets her phone number and the two soon begin a heated affair.

But what starts out as purely passion turns dangerously committed when Nola starts to become attached and urges Chris to leave his safeguarded life with his wife. But Chris becomes torn by the idea of leaving a life of wealth and stature that he has become accustomed to. His dual life leaves him afraid, confused and determined to make a decision.

The plot is thorough and well conceived. Allen creates a good balance of drama and allows the audience to become wrapped up in the characters’ dilemmas.

“Matchpoint” includes most needed features of a great adultery film, especially its ability to it feature twists and plots that the audience wouldn’t expect. But what the film is lacking is an understanding of its main character.

It is difficult to see what motivates Chris or what he wants to motivate him. Instead of choosing his own destiny, one gets chosen for him. He lacks an ability to love – not a hobby, not a career and not a woman.

Instead, with women, he is comforted by one’s wealth and obsessed with the other’s passion. His life and luck is likened to the teetering tennis ball that is shown at the beginning of the film. But luckily, for the film as a whole, the ball never drops.