Fifteen-Love

My Review- Fifteen Love Streaming on Foxtel

My Rating 7/10

This 6 part drawn out series starring Aidan Turner I found interesting to a degree as another story portraying the patriarchal power of men in Sport.

It also effectively makes a statement that the women who report sexual misconduct by coaches must be taken seriously and not dismissed until the accused is proven not guilty without a shadow of a doubt .

Aidan Turner is very impressive as the charismatic Glenn Lapthorn a respected and sought after Grand Slam tennis coach.

His former tennis prodigy Justine Pearce played impressively by Ella Lily Hyland reaches the semi final at The French Open tennis tournament but sustains a serious injury forcing her to leave the game .

Five years on Justine is undergoing therapy while her ex coach has successfully moved on to coach a new tennis star .

My problem with this story written and produced by Hania Elkington is that her main character Justine Pearce is so unlikeable unappealing and ruthless she uses people to gain her goals and will stop at nothing to gain revenge on the man she was once so obsessed by.

No reflection on Ella Lily Hyland's performance she plays this character exactly as written as a young women obviously obsessed by her handsome coach and totally jealous of his continued success.

Justine is a very troubled woman with a substance abuse problem and a huge ego who after five years seems more driven by revenge than justice.

On the other hand the coach Glenn Lapthorn in my view gets the audience's sympathy immediately because in contrast to his accuser Justine he seems so likeable.

Perhaps that's exactly what the story creator Hania Elkington and Directors Toby MacDonald and Eva Riley wanted to portray but the story didn't ring true for me.

Especially after 6 episodes for me another story that probably would have been a better movie however I did enjoy the performances very much as a whole the plot just seemed a little improbable to me.

I enjoyed all the performances from the supporting cast especially Maria Almeida, Harmony Rose Bremner who play upcoming tennis stars and the coaches wife Khalida Lapthorn played so well by Manon Azem.

I'll admit I only started watching this because it had Aidan Turner in it - and as actor I admire his talent.

No offence to him or to Ella Lily Hyland (or any of the other actors) because it's not their ability as actors that ruin this.

I get that this is important issue, and that the plot in itself was topical. But what on earth happened from its inception to the final production?

It's just dire. I don't know if I'm even going to bother watching the last 3 episodes because I just find it so incredibly predictable, boring and mind numbing. It could have been so much better. That's my word count reached so I'll leave it there.

This is very much a lightweight series despite the serious storyline. Unfortunately there really aren't many likeable characters, if any.

However, the biggest issue is the tennis. It's simply not feasible to try to make a TV show or movie about players competing in 'grand slam' tennis tournaments when you don't have the rights to use the real tournament names. It just totally takes you out of the moment. Worst still, there was absolutely no reason to try to do this as they could have made up some big tournaments and the story wouldn't have been affected.

In addition, they should have found some actors who could actually hit a tennis ball correctly - they are supposed to be elite stars. This especially applies to the main male player.

If you watch pro tennis this series is supposed to be for you I guess but it will bug the hell out of you.

Overall it's OK but absolutely nothing special.

I'm a huge tennis fan and I expected this to be full of in accuracies and take liberties in the name of making good TV. And it was utterly inaccurate in just about everything about tennis.

That would be fine if the show itself was good. Unfortunately after a semi decent start it falls of a proverbial cliff in terms of well.. pretty much everything.

Let me list a few of the worst things: Horrible acting from most of the cast, the directing, pacing, script and story are all over the place. You get endless repetitive scenes of the coach talking in a ridiculous voice saying pretty much the same lines.

By episode 3-4 it seems like they're out of ideas or trying to fill time because they reach for pretty much every TV trope you can think of.

The main actress is actually pretty good. Especially for an unknown.

Why use Wimbledon and Roland Garros in a story and you can't even mention it them by name? There are plenty of other big tournaments? Why is the main character acting like she's broke when she would have won nearly £1million from the French Open? Why is the grass completely worn out down to mud on DAY 1 of Wimbledon? Oh and news flash for the writers... tennis players regularly rant and scream at their coaches in front of millions of people - no one cares, it's not the dramatic moment you think it is.

I'm mystified how stuff like this gets made.

Poorly written, directed and acted, but this series still had the opportunity to do something actually brave - provide an example of a FALSE allegation of assault.

It seems that the long line of 'male-predator' series (and movies) must continue without any challenge to its central theme - ALL women tell the truth about sexual assault and violence.

The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp case provided an insight into this issue, as do many, many actual criminal investigations where false allegations result in a jail sentence for the accuser. For a variety of reasons, there are a few Amber Heards out there.

A truly challenging series would address this real issue.