Zendaya is a producer on this movie, and I admire her for making this movie and playing such a imperfect, and at times, ugly character. I should say "ugly by standards we set for women". No one would think twice about her character Tashi, a teen tennis prodigy turned coach - complex, flawed, unsentimental, mean, uncompliant, perhaps emotionally shuttered - if it was a man.
The score was oppressive and patronizing at times. It's okay to use a throbbing, insistent bass-heavy score. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross doesn't have to be to my style. The problem is, too often the score is used to double-underline moments. Moments the director either assumes the audience won't get, or the director is just heavy-handed as his style. There's also two pivotal moments that are scored with...opera music? Some kind of classical vocal music. One of the two was a great moment for Zendaya's character, that didn't need an Italian director's melodramatic needle drop to make it work.
About three-quarters of the way through, I thought to myself "I wonder when the cast finally saw the finished product, that this is what they thought the movie would be like?" and not in a good way.
It's worth seeing for three powerhouse performances, and a story that kept me guessing until the very end. My grade: B-plus