I’ve been made fun of quite a few times on this website over my love of rom-coms. Although I’m a sci-fi nut at heart I love watching romantic movies from time to time. The problem however is that Hollywood keeps making so many truly bad ones. I also quite like sports movies. Sure, you know beforehand that the main character is going to win in the end, but when done right these movies can be fun as well. So what if the two genres are married?

Wimbledon tells the story of 31-year-old “veteran” tennis player Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) who returns to the greatest tennis tournament for the last time. He’s about to give up his career in professional tennis when he meets Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). This is her first Wimbledon and she’s one of the favourites for the women’s title. So there’s winners, losers a boy and a girl. I’m geally not going into the story any further, because I don’t want to spoil this movie for you. Because I actually want you to go see it .

I used to watch tennis on TV with my mum all the time when I was a kid. The brilliant thing about tennis is the way the scoring system works. It’s designed to keep matches interesting to the very last serve, and it works. As far as I know there’s not much tennis cinema out there, so I have to give director Richard Loncraine credit for the way he’s portrayed the sport here. The atmosphere of the Wimbledon tournament is captured magnificently in many scenes and with cameras flying around mounted on balls the sport looks spectacular.

Acting performances are also crucial to a rom-com’s succes, and Dunst and Bettany do a nice job. Adding credibilty and fun to the proceedings are a number of other characters. This might seem obvious, but it’s precisely the point that American rom-coms miss. Peter’s family is colourful, there’s ball boy with whom Peter develops a special bond, etc. It’s those little extras that make the movie come to life.

Of course this is not Oscar material. No intriguing storylines or deeper meanings. And it’s not my personal genre favorite Notting Hill either. But is fun. Geniune fun.