Post-trauma movies have been having a moment. It Ends with Us uses the beats of a romcom to explore domestic abuse, She Said chronicles the real-world investigation into Harvey Weinstein, and the idea that “grief is the real monster” underpins the so-called elevated horrors of Talk to Me and, before it, Midsommar.
Julie Keeps Quiet turns the trope inside-out. The gripping debut feature from Leonardo Van Dijl is, against all odds, an entirely interior portrait of a teenage tennis prodigy who may or may not have been groomed. It’s a post-#MeToo story, according to the writer-director, who started the project in 2020 with the question: “What will the world look like in five years, after this moment?”
“I had confidence that the zeitgeist would help me push this concept through,” he says. “I didn’t want to make a film about a hashtag. But it’s true that at the beginning everybody was saying, ‘You have no story, because she stays quiet,’ and I argued, ‘Yes, but that’s the story, and that’s why it’s a good story, because this story has not been made yet. And this is the story we will need in the future.‘”
As the film begins, Julie is a promising student at an elite tennis academy in Belgium. The best in her class, she is preparing to apply to the national tennis federation as a junior professional when a bombshell drops. Her coach, Jeremy, is suspended following the suicide of his former star player, Aline.
An investigation follows into the death of the 16-year-old junior champion. Although Jeremy is fired, he secretly keeps in contact with Julie through texts and calls. Her friends, family and teachers are concerned about their relationship. The disgraced ex-coach spent more time alone with her than with anyone else.
Everyone is supportive. Her high-fiving replacement coach singles her out and asks the rest of the class to study her perfect second-serve technique. She remains reticent, dodging all questions and prioritising her game. “There are no problems,” she insists. “I just need to concentrate on school and tennis.”
“It was very important that this would be a narrative where Julie wouldn’t be punished,” says the director, who wrote the script with Ruth Becquart. “When we think about stories about girls, they’re always being punished. Sophocles’ Antigone is punished. Her bravery is punished.
“In our film Julie becomes an even better player. Even at the beginning of the film, when she is completely disconnected, she has that love and lust to play tennis. She has a voice in tennis. When she’s on the court she can do her Celine Dion stuff. We wanted to tell a story where she sings louder and louder.”
Julie Keeps Quiet, which was the Belgian entry for best international feature film at this year’s Oscars, is powered along by a carefully calibrated performance, as Julie, by Tessa Van den Broeck, an accomplished junior tennis player who had never been on a film set before being cast in the demanding title role.
Van Dijl had wanted to find a talented young player with no acting experience. He developed a tennis-themed language to work with Van den Broeck and incorporated the principles of Safe Sport, the programmes, policies and practices designed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of young athletes, to tackle the film’s dark subject matter.
“I sat down with the coach and I explained the movie I wanted to make,” he says. “I wanted safe child practice at every step. I did the same with her parents. I sent them all the scripts. And I said, ‘We’re going to talk about the script and no question is off topic. The way Tessa arrived at the casting, that’s the girl I want on set. I want a happy child. We all have a responsibility to communicate. If there’s something wrong, you need to tell me.’
“We cast other tennis players that she has known since she was a child. Her sister was basically on set every day. When we didn’t have any scenes she brought a friend or two friends to the set. I needed to make sure that when I called ‘cut’ she was smiley, bubbly Tessa again.”
As well as ensuring an unthreatening atmosphere, Safe Sport techniques also made Van Dijl a better director, he believes.
“A movie is a process, and it starts with casting,” he says. “It’s not just about making that movie. It’s about what happens afterwards. What is it like to suddenly be exposed as an actress? We had to help Tessa navigate that journey in a way that will help her become the person that she wants to be, whether she will be an actress or a tennis player.”
Forget Rocky-style montages: for much of the film Van den Broeck is training like the athlete she is. The cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis, whose previous credits include Bullhead, Cruella and I, Tonya, finds a kind of poetry in all that grunt work.
“What I find interesting about sports is that it’s an extremely audiovisual world,” Van Dijl says. “It’s a perfect space to create beautiful images and to work with sound design. For every athlete the competition or the big game is only a small aspect of their daily life. Every day is about going to the courts and training.
“Watching great athletes train is like great poetry. And I felt it was important as well that I didn’t want to attack the sport. I wanted to study a world where all this can happen to a 15-year-old girl. But, honestly, it can happen to a girl of 15 anywhere. It can also happen to a girl of 25, 35, 45, 55, 65. And the same counts for boys.”
The 33-year-old director, who has previously shot promotional films with Natalie Portman and Anja Taylor-Joy for Dior, is a rising star in European cinema. His first feature builds on a trilogy of short films he made exploring the complex relationships between sports coaches and their mentees. Get Ripped dramatises the toxic relationship between a 20-year-old and his lifting coach. Umpire, from 2015, is about a 14-year-old tennis prodigy panicked by the detention of her tennis coach. Stephanie, from 2020, follows an ambitious 11-year-old gymnast who hides an injury in order to compete.
“I use sports almost as a kind of kind of meditation,” he says.
Julie Keeps Quiet earned rave notices after it premiered at Cannes film festival in 2024, in the Critics’ Week strand, winning multiple awards.
For a film featuring a mostly unknown cast, Julie Keeps Quiet has some starry credits: it was produced by the Dardenne brothers and the novelist turned film-maker Florian Zeller.
After Cannes, Naomi Osaka signed on as an executive producer. “Supporting this story is a chance to amplify voices and continue important conversations that drive meaningful change both on and off the court,” the Japanese tennis champion said.
But there was one admirer who impressed Van Dijl even more. “I turned to Tessa and said, ‘So how was it to see yourself on the big screen?’ And she said, ‘Well, at the beginning it was a bit awkward, but after a while I just saw a character.’ I was so blown away by that quote. I feel like that’s something you would expect to hear Emma Thompson or one of the best actors in the world say.‘”
Julie Keeps Quiet is in cinemas from Friday, April 25th
