Love for losers
WIMBLEDON Cert. 12A
Wimbledon, a sporting romantic comedy, stars Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst as tennis players aspiring to glory at the eponymous championships.
However, while Dunst's character is a young American among the favourites for the women's championship, Bettany plays the part of Peter Colt, an ageing Brit with a low ranking, fitness levels which are alarmingly poor for a professional sportsman, and apparently little chance of progressing beyond the first round.
As one would expect of a film such as this, the two meet and fall in love. This heralds a phenomenal change in Colt's game, transforming him from a useless outsider into some kind of unstoppable tennis genius.
The film is funny in parts and the tennis sequences are highly enjoyable if you don't try to take them too seriously. The tournament in the film appears to be missing a round from the real life competition but this isn't really a problem as the writers threw any notion of plausibility out the window as soon as they decided that a British player was going to reach the final.
If there is a moral to the story it is the wonderfully politically correct message that love can turn even losers into champions.
