With Wimbledon fortnight upon us, what better time to explore tennis on the silver screen? Even more fortuitous is that Aidan Turner’s raunchy Amazon Prime series Fifteen Love will debut this summer, in which the Poldark star plays a tennis coach with a chequered past. Turner also features as moustachioed TV presenter Declan O’Hara (shades of Des Lynam as was) in Disney+’s upcoming adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, a show apparently so steamy it needed two intimacy coaches.
As an aspirational, largely middle-class game, tennis when depicted in the movies is largely free of the pile-ons, punch-ups and bad language of films about football, rugby and other contact sports. But, not as you’ll find out, wholly so…
Match Point (2005) – Disney+
As with his later Cassandra’s Dream (2007), Woody Allen demonstrates a tin ear for English as spoken in its native country in Match Point. However, the movie does have its compensations – it looks good, and the cast is generally first-rate (including Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox, and Matthew Goode), although leads Jonathan Rhys Meyers (as scheming married tennis coach Chris) and Scarlett Johansson (his mistress Nola) are a tad on the wooden side. The plot follows a Hitchcockian route by way of Allen’s own Crimes & Misdemeanours (1989); will Chris’ homicidal plan to ditch the now-pregnant Nola and cement his place in London’s upper-middle-class society succeed?
Wimbledon (2004) – Amazon Prime, Rent/Buy
Any selection of tennis-themed movies would be incomplete without Richard Loncraine’s (Richard III) amiable romantic comedy starring Paul Bettany as ageing posh pro Peter Colt and Kirsten Dunst as Lizzie Bradbury, a US up-and-coming star who re-energises the jaded 119th ranked wildcard competitor. Would I be ruining the picture by saying that everything turns out marvellously for the couple by the end? An easy-going picture for an easy-going mood, with strong support from the likes of Sam Neill, Eleanor Bron, James McAvoy, a pre-Game of Thrones Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Jon Favreau, with Chris Evert and John McEnroe as themselves.
Borg vs McEnroe (2017) – Disney+, Curzon, Amazon Rent/Buy
And speaking of John McEnroe, Shia LaBeouf plays the occasionally foul-mouthed tennis maverick, with Sverrir Gudnason (The Girl in the Spider’s Web) as his more restrained, but no less driven opponent Björn Borg in an enjoyable, but fairly obvious attempt to recreate the Hunt/Lauda vibe of 2013s hit F1 drama Rush (Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl). Borg vs McEnroe won critical praise, with the erratic LaBeouf gaining some of the best reviews of his career to date; as with Rush, BvM ends on a conciliatory note, the pair eventually acknowledging each other as: ‘Former rivals, best enemies’.
7 Days in Hell (2015) – NOW, Amazon Rent/Buy
At just 45 minutes, this HBO mockumentary obviously isn’t a full-length movie but is worthy of inclusion due to its laugh ratio and willingness to delve into tennis mythology. Inspired by the 2010 Isner-Mahut marathon men’s singles Wimbledon match, 7 Days pits bad boy Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) against dim English child prodigy Charles Poole (GoT’s Kit Harington), in the longest, and most lethal game in tennis history. There’s a definite hint of Will Ferrell and Jon Heder’s Blades of Glory but with an even darker comic edge. Chris Evert and John McEnroe play themselves, again.
For other wacky tennis moments, I refer you to the antics of Vijay Amritraj in the 1983 Bond movie Octopussy, where his particular set of skills help a creaky Roger Moore swat (literally) away the bad guys. Later in the picture, a grateful Bond hands MI6 agent Vijay some of his backgammon winnings taken from the villainous Kamal (Louis Jordan) with the immortal words: ‘That should keep you in curry for a few weeks’.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) – Disney+, Amazon Buy
There is a long, inglorious history of meltdowns in professional tennis (Roddick, Hingis, McEnroe, Connors, Baghdatis, and others), but few have matched that of Richie ‘the Baumer’ Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. Tennis star Richie flips out in tears at the US Nationals, ending his crucial match against ‘Mr Gandhi’ by serving underarm and shoeless, distraught at the recent marriage of his adopted sister (whom he secretly pines for) Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), to neurologist Raleigh St Clair (Bill Murray).
Accident (1967) – STUDIOCANAL, Amazon Rent/Buy
Joseph Losey directed Harold Pinter’s typically cerebral/pretentious adaptation of Nicholas Mosley’s 1965 novel which dissected the career and sexual rivalries of two Oxford academics, Dirk Bogarde’s Stephen, and pushy colleague Charley (Stanley Baker). In one crucial scene, the competitive tension between the two comes to the fore in a doubles tennis match with prize students Anna (Jacqueline Sassard) and William (Michael York).
Break Point (2015)
Another comedic spin on the game, although not especially popular with audiences or reviewers. Estranged brothers/former tennis pros Jimmy (Jeremy Sisto) and Darren Price (David Walton) reluctantly team up to make a run at a grand slam tournament. Some laughs to be had among the goofiness, mainly from a supporting company that numbers J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Amy Smart (Crank) and Adam DeVine (The Righteous Gemstones). The wry Chris Parnell plays the tournament commentator, echoing similar roles in Hot Rod (2007) and Answer This! (2011).
Battle of the Sexes – (2017, Disney+, Amazon Rent/Buy); When Billie Beat Bobby (2001)
These are films looking at the same event, namely the famed 1973 ‘Battle of the Sexes‘ tennis match between Billie Jean King (then aged 29) and 55-year-old hustling former Wimbledon champ (1939) Bobby Riggs. Two other motion pictures were also in development on the clash back in the mid-2010s; one with Will Ferrell as Riggs, another for HBO, starring Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks.
In the 2001 TV movie, Holly Hunter and Ron Silver play the duo; in the 2017 version, they’re played by Emma Stone and Steve Carrell. Billie Jean King thrashed Riggs straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Some unkind souls suggested that Riggs threw the game to pay off his prodigious gambling debts but since he had a potential $1 million match against Chrissie Evert in the works if he won, it seems to be more a case of misogyny than fact. Or it could depend on just how much money he supposedly owed the Mob.
Fun fact: Bobby Riggs and Björn Borg appeared as themselves in TV actor Bert Convy’s lame tennis comedy Racquet (1979).
Players (1979)
This perhaps rightfully half-forgotten romantic drama follows tennis star Chris (non-actor Dean Paul Martin, son of Dean) falls in love with an older woman and millionaire’s plaything Nicole (Ali MacGraw) while competing in the Wimbledon championships. Reviews were truly lousy and the box office poor, but Players has an unlikely fan in the shape of director Quentin Tarantino. ‘As a Hollywood tennis sports movie it’s pretty good,’ he has said, adding that Martin’s ‘tennis is terrific. And while I didn’t necessarily need to see him star in anything else, as a tennis pro he’s pretty convincing’. John McEnroe appeared as himself in the picture, to no one’s surprise.
The Founder (2016) – STUDIOCANAL, Amazon Rent/Buy
While McDonald’s burger biopic doesn’t have anything to do with the sport, there is one vital scene where company founders Maurice ‘Mac’ (John Carroll Lynch) and Richard ‘Dick’ McDonald (Nick Offerman) use a tennis court to demonstrate their unique food preparation/service – ‘a symphony of efficiency’ – to ambitious milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton). Kroc knows he’s onto something big, and step by step usurps the brothers, eventually taking over the McDonald’s name itself.
If you feel like checking out Real Tennis (the sport of kings, along with horse racing), the early form of the game beloved by the new Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, keep an eye out for Ever After (1998), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Three Musketeers (1973), and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976).
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