Adorable Romantic Comedy With A Very English Feel!

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2014)

This is such an adorable movie that it's hard to understand at first why it wasn't a huge hit. An underdog English tennis star (Paul Bettany) falls for a strong-willed rising woman's champ (Kirsten Dunst.) The funny thing is, I think cultural differences between England and America really stifled this movie's appeal. The hero is such a nice guy, but I think his willingness to be sort of pushed around and second best comes across as weakness to American audiences. Perhaps not so much in England where it's more acceptable to know one's place and settle for whatever society deems appropriate. And then there's the moment where he considers taking work as a country club tennis pro, and a little group of very attractive society ladies (of mature years) make it very clear they're looking forward to having him as a stud for hire. And the movie sort of bungles the moment, since what comes across is not how attractive he is but how he's too timid to say no to anyone!
At the same time, it's interesting that Kirsten Dunst plays a very strong-willed and determined young woman and that in itself seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable, perhaps more in England than America. And it's hard to tell whether it's modern women or Americans of both sexes who are being stereotyped as selfish and crude.
Then again, there are some minor touches that are slightly creepy. Sam Neill, dark and sinister and aging very badly, is quite off-putting as the American girl's manipulative "stage father." You keep getting the impression he doesn't know this is a comedy! Maybe they told him it was OMEN V: ANTICHRIST AT WIMBLEDON. Or maybe he's just royally ticked off that his face has dropped five inches in the last twenty years, giving him the look of a mountainside after a mud slide. Whatever the cause, Sam Neill is glowering and snarling in every . . . single . . . scene . . . and coming across more like late period Bela Lugosi than anyone you'd meet at Wimbledon . . . or anywhere else outside the crypt.