First Preview: 6:40 p.m.
First Watch Glance: 7:25 p.m.
Director Richard Loncraine attempts to win a Grand Slam with his aptly titled film, "Wimbledon." Unfortunately, what he serves up is more of a double fault. The fact that "Wimbledon" is a movie about tennis is actually to its advantage, for tennis is one of the least-represented sports in movies. Indeed, the thought of a sports movie with an original premise scared me just a bit. Fortunately for the humble folk who came to watch this movie, the writers helped prevent an overdose of originality by filling it with some of the most insipid and formulaic plot contrivances this side of Godfather III.
"Wimbledon" is essentially about two people, although it is really only told through the perspective of one of them. Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) is ranked 120th in the world on the professional men's tennis circuit. At one time he was ranked as high as 11th in the world (although people seem to have a difficult time remembering this fact), but after choking in the final of the U. S. Open, his career goes downhill as he begins to lose confidence in his abilities. As he grows older, he starts to get overwhelmed by the younger, faster, stronger players on the tour.
At the beginning of the film, we discover that he has accepted a wild card into Wimbledon and plans to retire after the tournament. He does not expect to get past the first round, but right before the tournament is to begin he meets Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), a tennis prodigy favored to win the tournament on the women's side and become the next big thing in professional tennis. They hit it off -- much to the dismay of Lizzie's father Dennis (Sam Neill), who wants her to spend her time concentrating on her game -- and Peter suddenly finds himself enthusiastic once again, with maybe just enough left in him to go all the way.
To be fair, "Wimbledon" does include its fair share of jokes and the infamous British humor. For instance, we are shown a rather interesting musical montage of Peter trying on different underwear for his first official date with Lizzie, finally opting for the "no underwear" look. It also has several witty quotes, such as Peter explaining to his mother, "Mum, I'm not afraid, I'm old," and Peter's brother Carl (who always bets against his brother), asking him, upon hearing him explain how he no longer cares whether he wins or not and that he will probably lose badly the next day, "So you're guaranteeing a loss then, are you?"
Furthermore, the movie employs an interesting "point-of-view" perspective in which the camera followed the path of the ball from the time that it is off the racquet to the time that it hits the court on the other side of the net. This is actually an intriguing effect and makes for some variety in an otherwise predictable film.
However, this is all negated by the mind-numbing plot. For one thing, it appears that Lizzie is easier than a drunken girl in a frat basement, which is either very good or very bad, depending on who you are and what you want out of this movie.
The first time that Peter and Lizzie meet is when Peter is accidentally given the key to Lizzie's hotel room and walks in while she is in the shower. This apparently is enough for Lizzie to invite Peter to a pre-game "warm-up session." (I would like to mention at this point that after the movie I couldn't recall a single instance in which Lizzie's age was mentioned, which is slightly disturbing considering that female tennis prodigies turn professional as early as 15 or even 13). In fact, I'll go even further and say that the main characters of this movie have two emotions either they are having passionate sex after talking to each other for two minutes, or they blame each other for poor performance (in their matches, of course) and refuse to talk to each other. That, in fact, is the basis of the conflict in the movie.
This brings me to my next point -- the film is essentially without any real conflict or consequences to any of the characters' actions. Lizzie and Peter basically do whatever they want, whenever they want, without any sort of repercussions. Dennis Bradbury's most severe speech involves him telling Peter that he respected him as a person and that he wanted what was best for his daughter. Furthermore, we never even see him yell at her or anything, even when she runs off for an entire day with Peter.
Loncraine obviously expects us to feel pity for Peter, a washed up, forgotten tennis player. What I don't understand is why, in the second scene of the movie, Peter is offered an important job at a prestigious London country club. How exactly does Loncraine expect us to sympathize with somebody who is getting ready to end a career as a tennis professional by taking a high-paying job with perks such as a reserved parking space, which the director of a wealthy country club is virtually begging him to take? Yes, Peter Colt is clearly headed down the societal ladder at the culmination of his career. Things like these throughout the movie detract strongly from any sort of positive experiences that the movie's few upsides provide.
Wimbledon is certainly not the worst movie ever conceived. It is, however, simply one recycled clich piled on top of another. It really is infuriating to watch this movie unfold in exactly the same way literally hundreds of movies before it did.
Furthermore, it's quite hard to connect to characters that don't have any real problems. As a result, the audience becomes complacent, estranged from the characters for lack of an emotional link and not tied into the story for lack of interest. "Wimbledon" may be viewable, but I would recommend catching the TV version in July if you're interested in some real tennis action.
