40-Love Parent Guide

Beek (Jasjit Williams) is a math nerd who spends his time analyzing the tennis games of global phenom Lois Kuzenkova (Alena Savostikova) – when he’s not flipping burgers at the local fast food restaurant. His dream of becoming a tennis consultant seems impossible until a relative dies, bequeathing him a legacy that will allow him to leave his home town and head for New York.

Beek’s route to the big time encounters a few detours, specifically a broken down car and a cracked tooth. These misadventures land him with an artist named Casey (Katerina Tannenbaum) as a traveling companion and a tow truck in which to complete the trip. Now, he must make it to the big city and persuade Lois and her entourage that his skills are just what she needs to fine tune her game.

40-Love could have been a much better film than it is. The story is at its best when Beek is in full nerd mode, either making uncanny Sherlock-type observations or using math to make a real difference. These moments receive little screen time and Beek spends most of the film being either clueless or mildly obnoxious. Other characters are often flat or inconsistent. Lois is almost completely devoid of personality and her only show of emotion seems to be grunting or shouting on the court. As for Casey, she harbors an intense hatred for dishonesty but can lie with ease and fluency when it furthers her own goals. Her successful deceit is lauded in the film, which is particularly odd given the heartbreaking consequences the lies of other people had in her own life.

The film also suffers from pacing problems. The first half of the story is devoted to developing Beek and Casey’s characters but that process is often slow and dull. Once the pair arrive in New York, the plot’s speed picks up, sadly without improving the enjoyment of the film. And don’t get me started on the predictability of the script. If you go more than twenty minutes into the movie without mapping out the plot all the way to the end, you are obviously watching your first rom-com.

Also on the negative side of the scale are this production’s content issues. Surprisingly, there is no sex or nudity but the movie abounds in profanity. With 100 swear words in the script, it serves up over one curse word a minute. The movie holds an ambiguous TV-MA rating, but were it a theatrical release, the profanity would ensure it received a Restricted rating. Thanks to this overwhelming level of profanity and little compensatory positive material, audiences aren’t going to have a lot of love lost for this unfortunate film.