Hyde Park Pick: Julie Keeps Quiet

A tense exploration into how an abuse investigation affects a young star tennis player, Julie, whose coach is suspended due to an incident with a prior club member, grapples with the choice to silently repress her suffocating emotions. This reluctance to speak creates an intensely internal film with subtle story progress and silence that speaks for itself, as Julie refuses to unfurl her emotions to the people close to her.

As well as being enhanced by the minimalistic colours and rhythmic sounds of Julie’s life, the powerful but nuanced, first performance from Tessa Van den Broeck makes her feel vividly real and raw, her silence, instead of being forced, is a calculated decision made as a form of self-defense in an attempt to preserve her future career. I think the way we watch her firmly sit on valuable information positions us on edge for the moment she snaps, which actually never fully comes in the potent way I anticipated, but instead in toned down waves of feeling.

I found that I was absorbed by the simple interactions between Julie and the people in her life, whether that be the softness of her mother, the recklessness that her friends bring out in her, or the shifting relationship between her and her new coach. These interactions and performances are done with such tenderness that you feel so deeply when watching them on a big screen and are consumed by the words spoken, or even the words that go unspoken.

The film raises the question of safe spaces for children, due to director Leonardo Van Dijl, who started his career as an editor for VICE magazine and made his short film debut with Get Ripped in 2014. Get Ripped, ties in to Julie Keeps Quiet, with a 20-year-old cyclist and his complex relationship with his coach. This film is followed by two more, excluding Julie Keeps Quiet, that, again, highlight themes of young athletes who find themselves in situations they should’ve been protected from. I think that this recognition of these unstable but almost under-the-radar situations is what makes this film so impactful to today’s society because of the truth behind Julie’s story.

Even though the topic this film addresses is heavy and ugly, I like the fact that these things are presented in an appropriate and not oversexualised way, showing the care taken to do this study of a young girl struggling without it feeling invasive. It’s a quiet film that will stick with you thanks to the alluring cinematography and absorbing subject.

Julie Keeps Quiet is now showing at HPPH - more info and showtimes are available here.