So what I knew about this movie is that it’s the one where Zendaya has a tennis and sexual threesome with two dudes, and it’s super horny. But the thing is, it’s… kinda not? The sexual energy is simmering at medium-low at most. (Though to be fair, I suspect most reviewers aren’t implicitly comparing it to a bunch of gialli, so maybe this is just a calibration thing.)

But what the movie is really about is the pro athlete’s mindset, the kind of obsession and drive that it takes to get to that level; and about how that intersects with love and friendship and sexuality.

In the movie, Zendaya is the superstar character who everything revolves around; and in real life, Zendaya is the superstar actor who the movie revolves around. Obviously she’s not her character — I don’t know if she even plays tennis at all — but given that she was a child actor, it does feel like the hard-charging girl-turned-woman character is at least somewhat autobiographical.

The movie has a kinetic energy, a non-chronological structure that mostly works well, good acting, and is rarely obvious. Good stuff, if not great.