Tashi, a tennis player turned coach, has transformed her husband from a mediocre player into a world-famous grand slam champion.
To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a challenger event, which is close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour.
Tensions soon run high when he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick, his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend......
The biggest problem with this film is that it has been a very long time coming. Trailers for this were around almost a year ago, and every time I saw the trailer, I was thinking to myself 'oh not this again'. But a trailer does not make a movie.
It has so much potential, It has a genius premise, and the ending of the film is pretty fantastic, but it's way too long, and a lot of the symbolism and mythos of the film is lost in the soap opera script and slow second act.
My opinion, I believe that Tashi does not exist, she is some sort of subliminal image for the two leads, to help them reveal their true feelings. They are in love, and always have been. She really only ever interacts with the two men, and her daughter and mother are her past and future self, respectively. I realised this toward the end of the film, when Tashi just materialises in the hotel corridor. She simply isn't real.
And thats the genius of the film, and it's downfall, as it could have been something so much more than the melodrama that it is. And herein lies the problems. The subliminal symbolism is just so in your face, that it almost spells it out to you that the two men are in love.
For example, the scene where the two are eating churros is just 101 phallic symbolism, and the makers may have well just dressed the guys in effeminate clothing and left it at that.
The makers treat the viewers like they are stupid, and it's insulting. We don't need to be spoon fed the narrative, we like to have opinions, and like to come to our own conclusions. I may be totally wrong, but it's what I got from the film, and in my honest opinion, I think that is the arc of the film.
On the plus side, the tennis scenes are pretty well choreographed, and the majority of the score by Reznor is pretty enthralling, but now and again it gets a little too much, just like the film. And the camera loves to linger on Zendaya, sometimes so much, it's actually cringeworthy.
So it's not an Ace film for me, in fact, it's not even 15-love.
It's pretty boring.
To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a challenger event, which is close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour.
Tensions soon run high when he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick, his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend......
The biggest problem with this film is that it has been a very long time coming. Trailers for this were around almost a year ago, and every time I saw the trailer, I was thinking to myself 'oh not this again'. But a trailer does not make a movie.
It has so much potential, It has a genius premise, and the ending of the film is pretty fantastic, but it's way too long, and a lot of the symbolism and mythos of the film is lost in the soap opera script and slow second act.
My opinion, I believe that Tashi does not exist, she is some sort of subliminal image for the two leads, to help them reveal their true feelings. They are in love, and always have been. She really only ever interacts with the two men, and her daughter and mother are her past and future self, respectively. I realised this toward the end of the film, when Tashi just materialises in the hotel corridor. She simply isn't real.
And thats the genius of the film, and it's downfall, as it could have been something so much more than the melodrama that it is. And herein lies the problems. The subliminal symbolism is just so in your face, that it almost spells it out to you that the two men are in love.
For example, the scene where the two are eating churros is just 101 phallic symbolism, and the makers may have well just dressed the guys in effeminate clothing and left it at that.
The makers treat the viewers like they are stupid, and it's insulting. We don't need to be spoon fed the narrative, we like to have opinions, and like to come to our own conclusions. I may be totally wrong, but it's what I got from the film, and in my honest opinion, I think that is the arc of the film.
On the plus side, the tennis scenes are pretty well choreographed, and the majority of the score by Reznor is pretty enthralling, but now and again it gets a little too much, just like the film. And the camera loves to linger on Zendaya, sometimes so much, it's actually cringeworthy.
So it's not an Ace film for me, in fact, it's not even 15-love.
It's pretty boring.