Julie is a star at an elite tennis academy. When her coach comes under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all the players at the club are encouraged to speak out. But Julie decides to keep quiet.. Belgium's official submission for the 'Best International Feature Film' category at the 97th Academy Awards in 2025.. It's a good enough story, though. But the script could have used some tweaking. It's as if they had a few scenes in mind and then just worked around them. There are a few good scenes (the one with the confrontation in the cafe comes to mind), but it's not enough to keep this thing afloat.
But even that's not enough
All the actors are at the top of their game. Especially the young tennis pro who plays Julie. She really does her best with the material she's given. There are just too many unanswered questions: What really happened between Julie and Jeremy? Why is she staying silent? One moment she has a problem with the new trainer, the next she will be trained only by him (I mean, what the F.. is it?) So, story-wise, it's just a big FAIL! But here comes my biggest problem with this movie.
The lighting is lacking
This director just doesn't know how to make a movie!! The framing is just plain wrong. There were shadows everywhere. In one scene you can only make out two silhouettes talking to each other. He never cuts into a scene between different subjects. It's like they only had one camera available. Now maybe (and I'm just guessing here), he thinks this brings peace and quiet to his movie. But for me it was annoying as hell.
Sometimes it was just unwatchable
And if you do decide to not have cuts in your movie, then remember to stay in the main shot and let us (the audience) watch and look where we want/need. No, this director decides for himself, we don't need this information. So, in many scenes we see people talking to other people whose heads are (half) cut off or you can just make out half of their faces. What do they teach in today's film school??!! Also, was this movie shot on an iPhone??!! When I saw that Nikolas Karakatsanis was the DOP on this, my mouth dropped to the ground! He actually made a phone call (pun intended) on this one. To me, this all comes down to one of 2 things: Either this director doesn't have a grasp on the basics of filmmaking, or he just doesn't care.
16/48 
