On Any Given Fortnight

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2006)

Wimbledon, for all its focus on one of the world's most storied competitions, is more of a coming-of-age tale than a pure sports movie.
Male protagonist Peter Colt (Paul Bettany, in the performance of his career) feels like something is missing from his life, but he's not sure what it is. As he would say "No, correct that, I know exactly what's missing." He's 31 years old, now ranked #119 in the world, and while many remember his name from the tennis circuit, no one seems to remember that just a few short years ago he was #11 (their guesses were a few spots shy of his true peak). Colt, from a well-off family, has just accepted a job as a tennis director at a country club, a nice retirement from the sport which will begin after his completes Wimbledon, his final tournament.
Adding to Peter's problems are his parents, who have grown estranged to the point where Dad sets up shop in a treehouse, and his brother, who cheerfully wagers against him in the first round as if he were counting on the outcome to pay his mortgage. No one is directly evil to Peter, but the evil is that no one dislikes him because he is about as nonthreatening a presence on and off the court as a man can be. He is more pitied than respected, at least by the seeded players who view him as filler, good practice for the final rounds, but merely a local "wildcard" entrant who will make a graceful exit into retirement early on. He does manage to pick up a groupie in Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), the brash, childish American star player who is expected to make Wimbledon her first Grand Slam. Lizzie's dad (Sam Neill) is not thrilled with the distraction, so even having fun becomes as much a chore for Peter as winning the match. It is not that he does not belong at Wimbledon, but where he is thought to belong, that is the cruelty here. Though more accomplished than almost everyone who will ever play the game, Peter Colt is barely known to the tennis world, and invisible to the rest of the world.
Colt approaches his first two matches at Wimbledon as if they were executioner's marches. His first match is against a prodigy who is expected to go far in his first grand slam, but as often happens, the journeyman takes him to school with solid play. The new job will now have to wait, as the French Open winner awaits in the second round, along with the obligatory bet-against from his brother and disbelief from the media and commentators (John McEnroe in a lively and very technically accurate performance, with Chris Evert as his sidekick). As was made obvious early in the film, it begins to become obvious to Colt that the greatness his mother told him that he had was for real, but also that he had never wanted to reach down deep enough to bring it out. Finally living in the present, Colt leaves nothing on the table and disposes of this challenge as well, leaving him to play his practice partner in the third round.
The "old" Peter Colt would have had a nice match against his equally nice training partner, but his desire to win (egged on by Bradbury) has gathered too much steam, and the partner is left sliced and diced, remarking after the match that Colt has a killer instinct never before seen. Meanwhile, Bradbury is winning her matches, but becoming increasingly distracted by what was supposed to be a boytoy becoming an important man in her life, and overshadowing her to the public, causing her father to go ballistic at the sight of him. He was right, of course, but sometimes other things in life are more important than tennis (for Bradbury), but sometimes, as for Colt, tennis has to take priority. Bradbury's day will come; it's now or never for Peter.
We all could look back on our lives and know we could have accomplished more than we did, but we can also look back and be happy with what we've done. Professional tennis would not exist without the Peter Colts of the world, and this movie is a glaring tribute to the journeyman players who slave in profitable anonymity and who rule most corners of the tennis world beyond the tour. In Peter Colt's case, he gets one last chance to separate himself from the masses and leave a mark on history, and while he had no delusions about climbing back to the top, anything can happen in one match, especially when the match is on your home court, a short drive from your house, against a player who may be great, but who couldn't possibly have the life-and-death intensity that Colt brought to the finals, with a little plot-driven grudge-match background thrown in.
As the final chapter unfolds, the movie takes a few swipes at sports-movie "miracles" and other cheesy plot devices, keeping the action as true-to-life as possible. Cinderella may win, or she may be valiant in defeat, but in this movie, the result is a logical one, and not the product of dumb luck or revenge-inducing superhuman strength (an incident where a ballboy is struck flips the bird at that idea).
All in all, a truly great film and an excellent example of what can be achieved in a true drama that doesn't rely on gratuitous sexuality or special effects to pacify a dumbed-down audience, but which rather treats the viewer as intelligent and able to appreciate a good story, without making it so complex that only a tennis pro could follow it.