32/45
But Julie chooses to remain silent
Tale
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. Belgium’s official entry for the ‘Best International Feature Film’ category at the 97th Academy Awards 2025. This is not a good film. It’s still a nice enough story. But the script could have been a little better. It’s like they had a few scenes in mind and then just skipped them.
But even that’s not enough
There are a few good scenes (the one with the fight in the cafe comes to mind), but it’s not enough to keep this thing going. All the actors are at the top of their game. Especially the young semi-professional tennis player who plays Julie. She really does her best with the material she’s given. Too many questions are left unanswered: What really happened between Julie and Jeremy? Why is she keeping quiet? One minute she has a problem with the new trainer, the next she’s the only one training him (I mean, what the F..?) So, story-wise, this is just a big MISTAKE!
The lighting is non-existent
But here comes my biggest problem with this movie. This director just doesn’t know how to make a movie!! The framing is just wrong. There were shadows everywhere. In one scene you can only make out two silhouettes talking to each other. He never cuts between different subjects. It’s like they only had one camera at their disposal.
Also, was this movie shot on an iPhone??!!
Now maybe (and I’m just guessing here), he thinks this brings peace and calm to his movie. But to me it was just boring as hell. And if you do decide to not have any cuts in your movie, then make sure you stay in the main shot and let us (the audience) watch and look where we want/need to. No, this director decides for himself, we don’t need that 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 film school these days??!! When I saw that Nicolas Karakatsanis was the DOP for this, my mouth dropped to the ground!
And that’s fine
He really did phone (pun intended) this one. Sometimes it was just unwatchable. To me, this all comes down to one of 2 things: either this director doesn’t know the basics of filmmaking, or he just doesn’t care. Maybe he just wants to tell his stories. But film is a visual medium. And it was just done wrong here. And I, as a paying customer, want more.
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