TIFF ’24 Review: ‘Julie Keeps Quiet’ finds its own pace

Performing at an elite level, whether as an athlete or other professional, often means you are willing to overlook certain transgressions to ensure continued promotion. Keeping your eye on the prize involves ignoring anything that could serve as a distraction, sometimes even if it’s categorically wrong. This extends to the potential indiscretions of anyone that holds influence over your career path, including superiors, coaches, trainers and mentors. One concern is their offences, if confirmed, could reflect poorly on you. In Julie Keeps Quiet, a young tennis star must block out allegations about her coach as she prepares for a major qualification.

Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck) is a sensation on the tennis court. She works hard on her drills and in the gym, and is one of the top ranked players in her age group. However, before tryouts for the national academy, her coach, Jeremy (Laurent Caron), is suspended from the club at which she trains. Following the suicide of one of his former students, an investigation is launched into his potential misconduct. As his feature athlete, all eyes turn to Julie for confirmation or dismissal of the claims. Uninterested in talking to anyone about the rumours or her own experiences with the coach, Julie puts all her energy into preparing for the tryouts — for better or worse.

They never reveal specifics about the accusations leveled against Jeremy, but many jump to his defence as he’s valued and respected by his students. However, when anyone tries to ask Julie about him, she either says she doesn’t want to talk about it, changes the subject or praises his coaching techniques. No one wants to pressure Julie and risk negatively affecting her mindset before the audition, so her excuses are reluctantly accepted. Instead, Julie channels her feelings into her training and gameplay, which works while she’s on the court. But off the court, there are signs she’s struggling.

Writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl notes that he wanted to allow Julie the ability to keep her secret until she was ready to share the truth. Thus, the initial confirmation is not from her lips nor does she directly disclose anything to anyone. She seems separated from it all, compartmentalizing so she can achieve her goals. When she talks to Jeremy, on the phone or in person, the lighting is significantly dimmer, articulating the dark shadow he casts on her life, always lurking in the back of her mind. He continues to try to control her training from afar, his doctrines so ingrained, she’s afraid to do what feels right in spite of his physical absence. However, as she begins to reclaim her life and her game, there’s a significant and encouraging shift in her demeanour.

Notably, Van den Broeck is a real-life, competitive tennis player and not a professional actor, yet she conveys the extensive range of emotions Julie experiences over the course of the narrative, often through just facial expressions or concise answers as the character uses her silence to avoid difficult discussions. Conversely, her athletic background brings an authenticity to the tennis scenes that someone else may not have been able to achieve. She’s done the drills and has the form, so the context of the story was familiar, allowing her to focus on capturing the nuances of Julie’s situation.

Julie Keeps Quiet had its North American premiere in the Centrepiece programme at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Read other reviews from the festival.

Director: Leonardo Van Dijl
Starring: Tessa Van den Broeck, Laurent Caron and Pierre Gervais