Not bad...

Rating: 5/10 (1 October 2004)

I just saw this movie yesterday and I thought it was a decent love story. It certainly is better than the last British comedy/love story which was "Love Actually." That was simply horrible. I give this movie 5 out of 10 stars. It is a good movie to take to a date. It has something for both male and female viewers. While this movie revolves around tennis, you do not need to know anything about tennis to understand the movie.
As for the characters, I thought Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany played their respective roles well. I always liked Dunst ever since "Bring it on" although I still say she should have never played Maryjane in Spiderman. Whoever in the movie studio thought of that should have been fired. Bettany has, I'm sure, been in many movies but the one that stuck in my mind was when he played a squire in "A Knight's Tale." A good actor and I hope I see him in other roles.
The premise of this movie is that it takes place in England. The tennis tournament called Wimbledon is about to start and an aging, has been British male tennis player ranked nearly the bottom, begins to develop relationship with a rising American female tennis player. The latter is driven to succeed while the former is just trying to finish the year so that he can retire and become a tennis instructor. They meet accidentally and begin to develop a relationship and over time, they begin to learn something about themselves and what love is about.