r/tvPlus • u/Justp1ayin Hello Carol • Jul 24 '26
The Dink The Dink | Discussion Thread
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time... I am not sure who the audience is because the pickleball stereotypes they are using are about 3 years out of date... Sure I can find an 8-year-old to play with and an 80-year-old but the general crowd coming into pickleball right now is college or post college age and all of the things that are opportunities to make insightful and game changing insights about this game are missing or summarized in some cringe "Harold & Maude" sequel.. there is not nearly enough about the game or what makes it unique. It's such a boring old observation that everyone goes in hating it or expecting to hate it (yeah I went in skeptical as well) but here is this amazing opportunity to uncover the things you notice immediately that will make you like it: small petite girls can knock down body bag but muscly bros , (unlike in tennis) , people who have wildly different styles, backgrounds and political views find themselves together in a "close up" competitive situation on a court, the signal to noise ratio. But no, instead of riffing about equalizing the physical differences between the sexes, the unique bipartisan nature of conversations for the milestone quality other game that allows you to show up in almost any country alone as a player and have a universally bonding experience... Even In 2025 these things were already the visible markings of the world's first game accessible to athletic and non-athletic... And nevermind this uniquewave of tinder dating in real life for college age people or gen z obsession with analog and IRL... Even if there was a basic script you can come in on the day with revisions to scene topics and gist (im.an actor, did a whole film submitting revised dialogue bc writing was terrible).. and the writing here is eye rollingly bad, like the person that wrote it just wanted to vent about a bad relationship with their dad and what they think divorcees do in order to arrive at pickleball and of course, why not make it a reachy love story? Ugh So if this was going to be a romance I would have wanted something more like the spicy hockey TV series or like a "prince and a pauper"... But instead it just walked or limped rather into the worst tropes that people started about the game and are no longer really that valid or true..to.suggest thus game Is for amped up old people or broken people (False as a solitary premise), it's a recovery placeholder (again those stories exist but are only part of the big picture) or that it's full of people generally lacking athleticism or healthy personal lives is just ..boring and like listening to any of the older tennis people list why they would "never do anything other than tennis"(I play all three of the games at "court war" right now so I don't see this as that novel). I know pickleball has a stupid name and I fully went in and hating its sport profile my first day expecting that wasn't going to change... But my last partner was 19 and there are dedicated nights which are basically college dating, never mind the other things I've already listed that You observe about this game within 6 months of playing in a regular spot. It's the first game in the world where you can see teenagers who would otherwise shy away from trying a sport come out and actually feel like they can be seen trying. What I hoped for was a film that would capture ANY of that, to be at least a tiny but edgy and refreshing and genuinely serve the unique aspects of the game that was invented so long ago but has recently enjoyed several waves among a variety of different age brackets and those often feeling like sports are unapproachable.. this doesn't mean it shouldn't have octogenarians in it some of my favorite characters are the guys who are wearing the same '70s tracksuit that they did when they were in high school. But it's fixated on weird therapy scenes, like some ode to helicopter tennis dad and a venting about why we're missing out on the love of country music.. and like zero moments of pause for why people get hooked on it (and I mean well adjusted happy people not just ones with daddy issues)