Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
No Result
View All Result
Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
Home Movie

A Riveting Teen Psychological Drama

rmtsa by rmtsa
May 23, 2024
in Movie
0
A Riveting Teen Psychological Drama
74
SHARES
1.2k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


You might also like

The 10 Most Controversial TV Recastings Ever

Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

Belgian director Leonardo Van Dijl’s assured debut feature, Julie Keeps Quiet, builds a riveting psychological drama around the choice of a star player from an elite youth tennis academy not to speak up in the wake of tragedy. In her first acting role, young tennis ace Tessa Van den Broeck internalizes the title character’s brooding unease with slow-burn intensity. The movie’s silence is so loaded with the anxiety, obstinance, inchoate anger and desire for anonymity of the traumatized teenage sportswoman that the constant thwack of her racquet hitting the ball cuts through the tension like violent shocks.

Unfolding predominantly in static frames that keep the story laser-focused, with pinpoint use of American contemporary classical composer Caroline Shaw’s needling vocal score, this is an austerely effective work. It has echoes of Laura Wandel’s Playground from 2021 and last year’s The Teachers’ Lounge by İlker Çatak, all three films centered on characters in emotionally fraught situations within the bubble of school systems.

Julie Keeps Quiet

The Bottom Line

Silence speaks volumes.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Critics Week)Cast: Tessa Van den Broeck, Laurent Caron, Claire Bodson, Koen De Bouw, Pierre Gervais, Ruth BecquartDirector: Leonardo Van DijlScreenwriters: Leonardo Van Dijl, Ruth Becquart
1 hour 43 minutes

The Dardenne Brothers served as co-producers and there are faint echoes of their stripped-down narratives and rigorously naturalistic performances from a sturdy ensemble in which the teenage characters are played by nonprofessionals. Cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis shoots the film with what appears to be natural light wherever possible, meaning Julie is often enveloped in shadow.

The deftly honed screenplay by Van Dijl and Ruth Becquart (who also appears as Julie’s mother) thrusts us with zero exposition right into the thick of the raw nerves and heightened vigilance of the academy’s staff and students. Questions swirl around the unexplained absence of Julie’s coach, Jeremy (Laurent Caron), but she resists every solicitation to get her to open up.

Already something of an outsider given that she’s a scholarship player subsidized by the tuition fees of rich kids, Julie becomes more guarded as she parses — or buries? — her complicated feelings about recent events. Chief among them is the suicide of Aline, a 16-year-old academy member also coached by Jeremy, seen projecting sunny self-confidence in a video about her hopes to join the Belgian Tennis Federation. While preparing for her own upcoming BTF trials, Julie rewatches that video obsessively.

The head of the academy, Sophie (Claire Bodson), informs the students that outside mediators are being brought in to launch an internal investigation and conduct interviews, in the aim of promoting more open dialogue and fostering a safe environment. But the organization’s staff also appear to be treading cautiously, wary of being implicated should major transgressions come to light.

That seems increasingly likely once word gets out that Jeremy has been suspended, and while Julie initially remains in contact with him by phone, she keeps those conversations to herself.

Van den Broeck plays Julie’s silence not as a weak choice but one requiring considerable strength. It’s clear from early on that lines have been crossed and that she’s recalibrating views on her own recent experience in light of Aline’s death. Her teachers and parents are concerned about her grades slipping, but she insists that she’s fine.

One of the strengths of Van Dijl’s film is that it also keeps quiet about what happened, even if it’s indicated unequivocally in Jeremy’s sole scene, when he meets up with Julie in a café to talk. That unsettling encounter is effectively shot in low light, with the two characters almost in silhouette.

The murky areas of the player-coach dynamic are fertile terrain for thorny drama, which is paradoxically amplified because Julie’s lips remain sealed. The fact that first Aline and then Julie were pushed forward as star talent and given solo training sessions with Jeremy suggests that in prioritizing the potential for academy players to break into professional tennis, the institution was lax in its supervisory role.

In short, punchy scenes played out with unerring restraint, the movie observes Julie practicing her serves, doing physical therapy for an injury or working out at the gym, all of which point to her using sport as a coping mechanism.

She listens to Jeremy’s skepticism about her replacement coach, Backie (Pierre Gervais), but she learns to work with him — perhaps in a healthier way. And she gradually makes friends among the other girls, coming out of her shell to a degree while remaining taciturn whenever the conversation turns to her former coach.

Most filmmakers would have pushed the character to a breaking point at which she spills out her secrets. But Julie’s firm position seems non-negotiable. While she appears on the verge of speaking up at several points, she draws a quiet power from her resolve, refusing to let trauma define her or derail her tennis career.

It’s conceivable the movie might chafe with people who believe all women have a responsibility to expose their abusers. But Van Dijl and Becquart’s script is smart enough to know that adolescence is a turbulent time, and while Julie remains conflicted and vulnerable, silence for her becomes about self-preservation. Whether or not that will remain the case is open to interpretation.



Source link

Tags: dramapsychologicalRivetingTeen
Share30Tweet19
rmtsa

rmtsa

Recommended For You

The 10 Most Controversial TV Recastings Ever

by rmtsa
July 27, 2025
0
The 10 Most Controversial TV Recastings Ever

Television is the perfect medium for longform storytelling, mainly because a multi-season TV show gives its audience plenty of time to connect and bond with its characters over...

Read more

Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

by rmtsa
July 27, 2025
0
Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

A new trailer for Peacemaker Season 2 has been released. The first season of Peacemaker premiered on HBO Max in January 2022. Created by James Gunn, the show...

Read more

Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

by rmtsa
July 27, 2025
0
Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

Rebecca Romijn is sharing an update on her return as Mystique in the highly-anticipated Avengers: Doomsday.  At The Hollywood Reporter’s San Diego Comic-Con suite, the Star Trek: Strange...

Read more

StoryTerra: an interactive map that lets you explore movies(among other things) based on where and when their stories take place!

by rmtsa
July 26, 2025
0
StoryTerra: an interactive map that lets you explore movies(among other things) based on where and when their stories take place!

I’ve been working on a project called StoryTerra, an interactive map where you can explore thousands of movies, books, games, and TV shows based on where and when...

Read more

Hot Toys Reveals Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Sue Storm, and H.E.R.B.I.E. Action Figures — GeekTyrant

by rmtsa
July 26, 2025
0
Hot Toys Reveals Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Sue Storm, and H.E.R.B.I.E. Action Figures — GeekTyrant

Hot Toys has revealed several new collectible action figures from Marvel Studios movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The first round of reveals include Regular and Deluxe versions...

Read more
Next Post
Stassi Schroeder Shades Jax Taylor Over Passport Drama

Stassi Schroeder Shades Jax Taylor Over Passport Drama

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized

CATEGORIES

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
No Result
View All Result

Recent News

  • 5 Artists You Can't Miss at VELD Music Festival 2025
  • ‘Family Guy’ Season 24 Release Date, Trailer — Lois Understands Stewie
  • Incredibly Popular Fantasy Series Confirms Surprising Prequel Release News

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In