28/48
Julie is a star player at an elite tennis academy. When an investigation is conducted against his coach and he is suddenly removed, every player of the club is offered to speak. But Julie decides to remain silent. Belgium’s official entry in the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards in 2025. This is not a very good film. Although this is a pretty cool story. But the script could be improved. As if they had several walls in mind and worked around them. There are a few good scenes (the cafe confrontation scene comes to mind), but it’s not enough to keep the film afloat. The actors are all in excellent shape. Especially the young semi-professional tennis player playing Julie. She really does her best using the material she is given. But even this is not enough. Too many unanswered questions:
What really happened between Julie and Jeremy? Why is she silent? One minute she’s having issues with her new coach, the next minute she’ll only be coached by him (I mean, what the hell?)
So, from the point of view of the plot, it’s just a big FAL! But here is my biggest problem with this film. This director just doesn’t know how to make movies!! The layout is simply wrong. There is no lighting. There were shadows everywhere. In one wall we see only two silhouettes talking to each other. He never cuts the wall between different plots. It seems that they only have one camera. Now, it’s possible (and I’m just guessing) that he thinks it brings peace and tranquility to his film. But for me it was just damn boring. And if you choose not to cut in your film, make sure you stay in one main frame and let us (the audience) see where we want/need to move. No, the director decides it himself, we don’t need this information. Therefore, in many walls we see people talking to other people, whose heads are (half) cut off or only half of their faces are visible. What do they teach in film schools now??!! And then, this movie was shot on an iPhone??!! When I saw that Nicholas Karakatsanis was the operator of this film, I was speechless! He actually called it (pun intended) exactly that. Sometimes it was simply impossible to watch. For me, it comes down to one of two things:
Either this director doesn’t understand the basics of filmmaking, or he doesn’t care. Perhaps he just wants to tell his stories. And that’s very good. But cinema is a visual medium. And here they did it wrong. And I, as a paying customer, want more.