Or perhaps we should call it "Love all, Actually"

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 2004)

A lot of people seem to be getting bent out of shape about the number of errors in this film (mostly tennis related despite the presence of Pat Cash as a technical adviser). Why? This is Wimbledon the movie, not Wimbledon the documentary. All I care about is if this film succeeds as entertainment and on that basis, it most assuredly does.
Yes, there are mistakes if you want to look for them (for instance, the lead character drives down the Mall to Trafalgar Square in order to get to the Dorchester in Park Lane, which is in the opposite direction and completely the wrong route to take unless you are going by cab, but conveniently allows the filmmakers to feature Buckingham Palace and Nelson's Column to make sure everybody (i.e. Americans) know we are in London). But since the story centres on a British player winning the men's singles final, this is hardly based in the realm of reality anyway and therefore any further criticism over accuracy is pointless. As it is, to this non-tennis-playing viewer, the tennis scenes seem convincing enough and since the majority of the story is set off-court, I think the film's producers made the right decision in casting actors in the lead roles rather than tennis players.
Paul Bettany adds yet another fine performance to his list of credits (which include a great turn as Geoffrey Chaucer in Brian Helgeland's gloriously anachronistic "A Knight's Tale", "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World", "A Beautiful Mind" and "Gangster No. 1") and Kirsten Dunst is equally up to the task, despite having the harder job as her role is somewhat underwritten and gives her less to work with. Her top billing is for marketing reasons as Bettany's character, Peter Colt, is the main character in this film, not hers but Dunst's name is bigger at the box-office, especially after the "Spider-man" films. Still, the two manage to make their characters likable enough for you to care about them and to want them to win through at the end (plus any film in which Kirsten Dunst's first scene sees her emerging from the shower gets my vote). There are also good supporting performances from Sam Neill, Bernard Hill, Eleanor Bron and James McAvoy which help.
Behind the camera, Richard Loncraine provides some stylish directorial flourishes and thanks to the extremely talented cinematographer Darius Khondji, both London and Brighton have never looked lovelier.
This film is the latest from Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title company and adheres closely to the formula which has worked well for them in the past in such films as "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill", "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "Love Actually" and as such should be another smash hit for them which should help make up for the disappointing performance of the much (and unfairly) maligned "Thunderbirds".