Pickleball is essentially treated as an instant joke in movies, sort of like having a character be a podcaster, although probably less worthy of derision. It’s also kind of a lazy joke, I guess playing on the idea that it seems a little bit corny and a lot of people like it. And so I was a bit concerned at the beginning of the new comedy The Dink that the movie’s jokes were going to be similarly lazy, and especially so when we start out with children cursing at an adult, which is never as funny as people seem to think it’s going to be.
But as the movie went on, it settled in and turned out to be a lot funnier than I expected and a whole lot more pro-pickleball, too. Jake Johnson from TV’s New Girl stars as a former child tennis prodigy who flamed out the instant he went pro, and he works at his father’s tennis club where he mostly abuses the members and crows about his glory days. One day he hurts his wrist and a doctor suggests pickleball as part of his rehab. Of course, Johnson, his father, and the rest of the tennis club all loathe pickleball, and even more so since the club had to cede one of its courts to pickleball players to keep revenue coming in. But, wouldn’t you know it, Johnson begins to take a shine to the game and the people he meets, and when a competition arises between the tennis club and the pickleball community, things get more complicated than anyone might have expected.
Without a doubt, the movie is elevated by the performances of its actors, who all do their jobs admirably no matter how silly things get, including a stone-faced Ed Harris as Johnson’s no-nonsense father and Mary Steenburgen lighting up the screen with her natural ease as Johnson’s pickleball partner. And Johnson is smart enough to lean into his own strengths playing an arrogant, insecure jerk who reaches some level of self-awareness. And in the end, it’s all enough to make the movie, well, maybe not an overhead smash, but definitely a winner. A dink, you might say.
The Dink is on Apple TV July 24th.
