Review: Wimbledon

The only thing worse than a bad lowbrow comedy is a bad middlebrow Britcom.

Wimbledon
Photo: Universal Pictures

Films like Shrek operate under the single-minded assumption that shit jokes can carry a story, while the prim and proper Wimbledon is convinced that there’s nothing funnier in the world than catching your parents having sex or seeing a grown man have a conversation with a dog. This insufferable rom-com from the production team responsible for Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill is built around the ludicrous notion that the best way for a tennis player to improve his game is to shag a young nymphet, preferably Spider-Man’s girlfriend. Oh, if love and marriage were only as easy as Wimbledon suggests.

Here, the rules of tennis are meant to double for the laws of attraction, but while the filmmakers mean to evoke the intense back and forth of a tennis match in the relationship between the aging Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) and the up-and-coming Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), the true resonance of this white-bread Hallmark card is like that of a song built entirely from terms pulled from a tennis glossary. Spin. Lob. Serve. Ace. Smash. Love.

Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett, and Mark Levin are the film’s credited screenwriters, but this may be a front for Diane Warren. Case in point: He says, “I thought I was all alone in the love department,” to which she replies, “Well, you’ve got company.” And after a little nookie from Lizzie, Peter begins to pick off all his competitors at Wimbledon. Once “lost and confused,” his inner circle now calls him a “dragon-slayer.” Later it’s a “knight in charming armor,” which may explain his chivalrous decision to take blame for a breakup that was never his fault. But when Lizzie’s love for him fizzles (not unlike that comet in the sky), can Peter defeat a young, sexy, and extremely arrogant American for the top prize at Wimbledon? Stay tuned!

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Score: 
 Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany, Kyle Hyde, Robert Lindsay, Celia Imrie, Penny Ryder, Annabel Leventon, Amanda Walker, James McAvoy, Bernard Hill  Director: Richard Loncraine  Screenwriter: Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin  Distributor: Universal Pictures  Running Time: 90 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2004  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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