There was a time when Woody Allen could deliver a witty and observant take on human relationships in 90 snappy minutes or less.

But at over two hours, watching Match Point is like sitting in a private dentist's waiting room to have an abscess lanced: a mostly painful and fidgety experience which all the pretty décor and feeble humour in the world can’t shorten.

Allen’s dialogue is traditionally at its sweetest when he sees the funny side of souring relationships. Annie Hall, Manahattan, Hannah And Her Sisters and the more recent Melinda And Melinda spring to mind.

Sadly, whenever he takes himself seriously, nobody else does (see the moody claptrap of Interiors, September and Another Woman for details. Or rather - don’t).

So where does it all go wrong? In this instance, it doesn’t help that the story is populated by tiresome characters revolving around a spineless prat (played by charisma vacuum Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, possibly the most wooden leading man since Pinocchio).

After lumbering us with a protagonist it’s impossible to like, let alone care about, Allen does Emily Mortimer no favours by casting her as the tedious, pregnancy-obsessed Chloe.

Worse still, he squanders Johansson’s considerable talents by turning the initially feisty and interesting Nola into a fickle whiner.

Where's the woman-scorned hellfire à la Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction when you need it?

Oh Lord, then there's the script. Turgid, awkward and overly repetitive, the dialogue would have been rejected out of hand by Merchant-Ivory. Next time Woody comes to London, someone ought to take him for a night in a local Wetherspoon's so's he might get a more realistic idea of life in 21st century England.

Posh folk talking posh is one thing, but even the policemen make Miss Marple sound like Dirty Harry.

The structure's laughable too. It's as though PD James’ dustbin man found it in the trash and decided to have a go at beefing up its final act.

It’s a hair-tearing nightmare of plot holes, unlikelihoods and contrivances.

How sad that the only laughs to be had from a Woody Allen film are of the unintentional kind. Feeble ironies take over where killer one-liners once proudly stood.

And don’t be fooled by the title - iffy opening metaphor aside, Match Point is nothing to do with nets and rackets. It merely implies that Woody is rapidly going to seed.

Elliott Noble