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Wimbledon film review
WIMBLEDON
Running time: 98 mins
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany, Sam Neill, Bernard Hill, Eleanor Bron, James McAvoy
It's about time someone made a good film about the cut and thrust of the professional tennis circuit. Unfortunately this isn't it. Instead Wimbledon is an insipid romance set in the world of tennis, but not one any fan of the sport would recognize. Obviously the film is a fairy tale. Any story even positing the improbability of a homegrown victory in the esteemed grass tournament would have to be, but even so the film's flippant regard for authenticity borders on insulting.
There's an inherent problem with any sports based film. Trying to pass an actor off as an accomplished athlete rarely works. And while Paul Bettany clearly can handle a racket, no amount of fancy editing can disguise the fact that Arthur Ashe would have a better chance of winning Wimbledon than Bettany, and Ashe died in 1993. And as for Kirsten Dunst, well it would require more special FX than were used in Spider-Man 2 to make her look remotely sporty.
Wimbledon's tenuous verisimilitude could be forgiven if what remained were remotely engaging, but save for Bettany's breezy portrayal of the upper class English tennis hopeful Peter Colt, it's about as entertaining as watching rain fall on centre court.
Colt's once promising career faltered at eleventh in the world, since when his ranking has plummeted as his age has risen. On the verge of taking a coaching job, he gains a wild card entry to Wimbledon, vowing it will be his final tournament. On the eve of the championship, he bumps into brash American tennis star Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), over for her first Wimbledon (inexplicably given most women's tennis careers are half over at her age. Whatever). Before you can shout 'new balls please', the two are in bed.
Lizzie wants to keep things casual as sex makes her serve "mushy," something that's obviously of greater concern to her controlling father (Sam Neill) than her promiscuity. Peter, on the other hand, is keener to see more of Lizzie, not only for the obvious reasons, but because due to Lizzie his game has suddenly improved and he finds himself making unprecedented progress at Wimbledon. And therein lies the dilemma.
The film makes token efforts to involve other characters, but without conviction or purpose, resulting in the likes of the wonderful Eleanor Bron and Bernard Hill, as Colt's parents, being wasted. In the end it's all a little too jolly hockey sticks and quaint. Bettany and Dunst do their best to hold proceedings together, but what the pair lack in chemistry certainly isn't helped by the script.
Inevitably in a film so unabashedly sentimental, the writers don't miss out on the obvious link between romance and the game's scoring terminology. In the midst of a row, Lizzie cries out, "Love means nothing in tennis. Zero. You lose." Sadly, with Wimbledon, we all lose.
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