‘Julie Keeps Quiet’ Review: A Tight, Poised Belgian Debut About the Challenges of Holding It Together
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic For teenage tennis prodigy Julie, discipline isn’t merely a virtue but a survival strategy. Repressing adolescent urges and emotional swings has long been part of her routine at the high-level youth tennis academy where she’s currently the star student: Years of concentrating all her time and attention on her game — all work and all play, as it were — look likely to reward her with the pro career she dreams of.
Yet as whispers build of inappropriate behavior by her coach, Julie’s deliberate tunnel vision seems less a rigorous regimen than a fragile defense against interior collapse.
A tense, taut, artfully hushed debut feature by Belgian writer-director Leonardo van Dijl, “Julie Keeps Quiet” also knows the value of control — though its own calm is fraught with anxiety and anger.
A standout of this year’s Critics’ Week programme at Cannes — where it won the SACD Award and scored sales including a U.K. distribution deal with Curzon/Artificial Eye — “Julie Keeps Quiet” should travel far on the strength of its coolly riveting execution and subject matter that remains broadly resonant amid an ongoing #MeToo reckoning.
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