Fault

The scouts

Everyone expects a maudlin grief film and Goldberg gives you exactly that—which is precisely why this doesn't interest me; it's competent mourning-by-sports-metaphor that knows exactly what button to push and pushes it without apology or twist.

The formal restraint here is exceptional—four bodies moving through a court they've inhabited together, the game's geometry becoming a language for absence—and Goldberg's decision to let the match itself carry the emotional weight rather than manufacture catharsis places this squarely in a lineage of cinema that trusts ritual and space to do the work.

The singular move is the sound design in those moments between serves: the way Goldberg isolates the hum of the court, the breath, the small administrative sounds of the game, which transforms what could've been treacly into something genuinely haunting without a note of score.