30/36
Julie is a star player at an elite tennis academy. When her coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all of the club’s players are encouraged to speak up. But Julie decides to keep quiet.. Official submission of Belgium for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 97th Academy Awards in 2025.. Saw his at the Ghent 2024 film festival. Many scenes show tennis training and related, but not to the extent of being annoying, not even for someone (like me) who is not in sports, any sports. The issues shown are contemporary, and we see many similar cases on TV and in newspapers, varying from rumored via openly alleged to legally proven. What we also clearly see here, is that we never get to know what exactly happened, how far it went and how long it lasted, mostly due to privacy concerns for the accused as well as the victims.The latter is my problem with this movie . When the final credits appeared, I still didn’t know what the real problem was. The word "stop" is used very often by Jeremy (the accused trainer), repeatedly emphasizing that he stopped as soon as Julie said she wanted him to stop. Is it thus a case of sexual harassment? Remarkable is that Julie reacted heftily when she learned that Jeremy got a position as trainer on a different location (we recognize this "move" tactic within the church and sexual abuse cases). She also asked her newly appointed trainer whether he was prepared to keep working with her in the case that Jeremy would be reinstated on his old job.Another unresolved topic is why Julie kept silent and refused to participate in the talking sessions organized by officials, who are obliged to do "something". Did she not want to reveal her reasons why she kept silent and remained out of the pending investigation?? Or is it a mixture of feeling guilty that she was late with asking Jeremy to stop?? I can only guess what her considerations were. (Maybe I missed something and was it clear for everyone else watching the same movie.)All in all, interesting for tennis lovers and equally for others who are interested in the main "me too" theme of this movie. The intermixed tennis training scenes are not dominating, nor are they distracting from the main issues. We see Julie in many scenes and many moods, while succeeding in keeping us fascinated with the developments in the story throughout the running time. The other young actors involved did a good job as well.