Julie Keeps Quiet

This perfectly poised debut feature by Belgium’s Leonardo van Dijl opens with the stirrings of a newly emerging scandal. Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck), a highly promising 15-year-old player at a tennis academy, nervously faces changes in her training program after her longtime coach is put on leave. The reason: allegations about his relationship with a former player who has recently committed suicide.

Despite mounting pressure on Julie to share her own experience with her mentor, the taciturn teen directs her focus where she’s always been conditioned to: her game. Yet, whether Julie acknowledges it or not, the unfolding crisis gradually compels her to emerge from the isolation that’s been imposed on her.

While so many sports-themed dramas give short shrift to actual matters of athletics, van Dijl’s film generates tremendous nuance and verisimilitude by emphasizing the discipline and physicality of its protagonist. An elite player herself, Van den Broeck gives an utterly compelling performance. Indeed, such is the feature’s authenticity as a representation of the experience of young players, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka was moved to serve as an executive producer.

Van Dijl crafts his film with the same degree of care, clarity, and rigour that marked early shorts such as Stephanie, a Short Cuts selection at TIFF 2020. But for all the precision in its execution, Julie Keeps Quiet also develops surprising warmth as the deeply empathetic story of a teenager coming to grips with trauma and rediscovering her connections to the people in her world.

JASON ANDERSON

Content advisory: mature themes