Patrick Stewart flies in this - for him - very quirky role, a somewhat over-the- top, deliberately isolated, and often rather silly and kinetic aging ballet teacher at Julliard.
Playing Tobias (Tobi) Powell, he's lived around the world and pretty much seen it all. He's been on a million adventures, slept with a million people, lived the prototypical and seemingly enviable life of a globe-trotting artiste - a ballet dancer who many years before blew out a muscle that kept him off the stage permanently. Now he teaches ballet at the world-renowned school of music, theater, and dance in New York City, Julliard. Settled into a quiet, out-of-the- way if funky ethnic neighborhood in Manhattan, Tobi's on the comfortable down slope of a long career in the arts.
Inserted into his comfortable world are two people who want to learn about his life and the history of ballet - at least, that's what Tobi is lead to believe initially. That's of course just the beginning of the story. Though the many spoilers give away the plot, I won't here. Better to discover it for yourself.
Carla Gugino and Matthew Lillard as the seemingly mismatched married couple Lisa and Mike Davis, are contrasting sides of the same coin. Mike is brutish, somewhat taciturn, forceful. Lisa is sweet, lovely, kind, thoughtful. They each in their own way lend powerfully to the story.
Lillard is surprising in his role - he often plays pretty silly, crazy, and ridiculous characters himself, but here he is the straight man. In this particular role, it's ideal. He does well.
Gugino is very good as the wife, crushed and withered by difficult circumstances and history between she and Mike. She comes across gently, carefully exposing her many wounds to Tobi who frequently meets her halfway in her moment of crisis.
But, ultimately, this is a story of redemption. In this respect all characters come back together in funny, heart-wrenching, and unexpected ways.
And what can be said of Patrick Stewart as Tobi? Wow. Just wow. He is really so very, very good. He's incredibly silly at times - saying crazy and really inappropriate things, but almost always hilariously. It's often due to nervousness but he's really kind of an ADD case, blurting out at times brilliantly absurd comments about love, lust, sex, and all kinds of people. He's really, really funny.
He's also incredibly poignant. He has a huge heart, is loving and sweet, ridiculous and silly, over-the-top and flamboyant. He encapsulates all that you expect an artist to be. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't be enormously entertained by Stewart's performance in this film.
"Match" is an insightful film about the twists and turns hidden in the life we think we've lead, about the decisions we've made, about maybe what we've left behind or left undone. Well worth a watch.