Our underpants thank AACTA winning Snowtown director Justin Kurzel (interview here) who’s promised a more palatable experience for his sophomore feature film Ivan Lendl Never Learned to Volley. Inspired by his own experience as a tennis player and named for former world number one and eight time grand slam winner Ivan Lendl, the film explores the father-son dynamic between an Australian tennis prodigy and his strict/obsessive Tiger Dad (hopefully his training methods don’t involve shooting household pets!).
“It’s based on a true story that happened in France between this father and son,” Kurzel explained to The Playlist. “My brother and I were kind of prodigy tennis players, we had a very strict tennis father, so it’s about relationships and about, again, father-son relationships. We’re just about to go on a research trip through Eastern Europe and follow the tennis circuit there. It’s a little bit like ‘Submarine’ meets ‘Rushmore’ meets a black comedy.”
His last research trip gave him nightmares so we hope he has a happier time in Europe.
Ivan Lendl Never Learned to Volley will be released via Warp Films Australia.
