Apple’s new pickleball movie, The Dink, drops on July 24. Produced by Ben Stiller (Dodgeball), directed by Josh Greenbaum (Spaceballs: The New One) and written by Sean Clements (Workaholics), this flick has an impressive comedy pedigree. Add in New Girl’s Jake Johnson, as former tennis prodigy Dusty Boyd, the always effervescent Mary Steenburgen as the woman who turns him on to pickleball and breakout Australian comedian Aaron Chen as Dusty’s sidekick and all the pieces are in place for a great sports comedy. But how does it fare translating the world of pickleball to the screen? The Hollywood Reporter sent me, their only contributor who moonlights as a PPR-certified pickleball instructor to assess how the cast fared portraying pickleball on the courts, how well they captured the essence of the game and how the film holds up overall. I had been playing competitively for about four years when I decided to pursue my coaching certification. I struck at just the right time. In our post-Covid world, a sport that has been around since 1965 exploded in popularity. Pickleball saw its participation grow over 300 percent in the past few years. Why? It has a low stakes entry point: Equipment to get started is cheap, the court is smaller and less intimidating than tennis and the pickleball community as a whole is remarkably welcoming. But there has always been an undercurrent of tension with the tennis folks who see pickleball muscling in on their turf with a less refined, dumbed down game. As Dusty’s dad, a tennis snob, explains, “People say you can learn pickleball in an hour. That’s not a good thing.” Dusty Boyd’s storyline is based on the real-life experience of writer Sean Clements, who played competitive tennis when he was younger but found, after he took it up again years later, that his older body succumbed to one injury after another. It was his mother who suggested he take up the suddenly trendy, less physically taxing sport of pickleball. After some initial reluctance, Sean quickly fell in love with it. He also saw a great opportunity for comedy. “Coming from a tennis background and seeing how much animosity there was between the two camps, it felt like there really is a natural conflict and ways to put together characters who otherwise would not be interacting and have them find common ground.” The first scene of Dusty playing doubles pickleball, paired up with Mary Steenburgen against two older women, may seem like a contrived Hollywood scenario — especially when the more mature women beat them badly and start trash talking Dusty. But I can attest that this is a 100-percent real scenario that happens every single day on courts across America. It happened to me early on and still does! Both Clements and director Josh Greenbaum had similar experiences when they first started playing. Same goes for Johnson. Recalling a game he played when he was starting out with actor buddy Justin Long against two women in their seventies, he said, “They not only beat us, but they were talking trash the whole time. I was becoming Dusty. It was making me mad. This woman kept hitting it in the middle, and I’d miss and she’d say, “Ooh, maybe think about moving faster.” And I would be like, you need to cool it, girl!” That’s what told me this flick was on the right track. Everyone involved seemed to have a real affinity for the game. It was made by folks who really love it and that authenticity shines through. The earlier recreational play scenes successfully capture the community aspect of it all. Greenbaum wanted to highlight what he experienced when he tried the game for the first time. “I loved it!” he says. “So many age groups and walks of life and a very welcoming community.” Now let’s talk about the realism of the pickleball action. Johnson is supposed to be terrible at first, but his playing partners Steenburgen, Cleo King and the late Lynn Marie Stewart all played admirably on the screen. The big game at the end looks terrific, too. Greenbaum said he and his DP “studied Rocky and Raging Bull to find the cinematic language to shoot that final match.” Advanced pickleballers may quibble at the leisurely pace of the volley battle during the final point, but I think it fit both characters’ supposed skill level in the moment. Now was it all movie magic, or could the cast really play? Apple offered to let me find out for myself. I met several cast members at City Pickle in NYC and got to watch their on-court gameplay. Before I get to that, though, there was one moment that I must share. It’s about how they did me dirty. Just as I was about to take the court with them, the publicist apologized and said the cast had one quick segment to do before mine. Not a problem. Until I started watching the young woman on the court with them. She could really play. And she looked so familiar. I asked who it was. “Oh, that’s Anna Leigh Waters.” My jaw dropped. She is widely acknowledged as the best pickleball player in the world. Pickleball’s Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady. At only 19 years old! How the hell was I supposed to follow her?