{"id":2511266,"date":"2026-07-21T17:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2511266"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:42:49","slug":"the-dink-review-jake-johnsons-apple-tv-comedy-swings-and-hits-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-dink-review-jake-johnsons-apple-tv-comedy-swings-and-hits-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Dink\u2019 review: Jake Johnson\u2019s Apple TV comedy swings \u2014 and hits | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" false=\"\">\n                                <meta itemprop=\"isAccessibleForFree\" content=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Movie review<\/h2>\n<p>A sunny summer comedy that provides fleeting but genuine pleasure, \u201cThe Dink\u201d is a sports movie that tackles a vast cultural divide: tennis vs. pickleball. Tennis club owner Chuck (Ed Harris) despises pickleball, calling it \u201cthe novel coronavirus of sports,\u201d and claiming that it is the responsibility of all who love tennis to \u201cbecome the vaccine.\u201d But, as it happens, Chuck\u2019s son Dusty (Jake Johnson), a washed-up 40-something former pro who reluctantly teaches scornful kids at his dad\u2019s club, finds himself drawn to the charms of pickleball \u2014 and to those of his new friend Candace (Mary Steenburgen), a pickleball hobbyist who urges him to try something different.<\/p>\n<p>Directed by Josh Greenbaum (\u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/entertainment\/in-barb-and-star-an-ode-to-middle-aged-joy-and-culottes\/\">Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar<\/a>\u201d) from a screenplay by Sean Clements, \u201cThe Dink\u201d is the sort of loosely tossed-together comedy in which you suspect the actors are ad-libbing half of their lines, but it works. The cast is full of funny people in supporting roles, popping up like bouncing tennis balls: Patton Oswalt, Ben Stiller, Chloe Fineman, Chris Parnell, Aaron Chen and an absolutely scene-stealing John McEnroe, who may well have missed his calling. Speaking of tennis stars, Andy Roddick also shows up, to make fun of himself (he\u2019s plugging a memoir called \u201cAdvantage Me\u201d). And though this isn\u2019t a rom-com (despite a sly reference to \u201cThe Graduate\u201d), Johnson and Steenburgen have an unexpectedly appealing chemistry.<\/p>\n<p>If you, like me, know next to nothing about pickleball, you\u2019ll find some amusing nomenclature here (starting with the title, which isn\u2019t an insult \u2014 despite what Dusty thinks \u2014 but a particular kind of slow-moving drop shot). Do people at pickleball courts really shout \u201cFresh pickle!\u201d when a newbie arrives? And are certain players really known as \u201cgrunters\u201d? \u201cThe Dink\u201d will surely be forgotten by the first autumn leaf, but for now it\u2019s an enjoyable diversion with a welcome message: Sometimes in life, you don\u2019t have to swing so hard to be a winner.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Movie review A sunny summer comedy that provides fleeting but genuine pleasure, \u201cThe Dink\u201d is a sports movie that tackles a vast cultural divide: tennis vs. pickleball. Tennis club owner Chuck (Ed Harris) despises pickleball, calling it \u201cthe novel coronavirus of sports,\u201d and claiming that it is the responsibility of all who love tennis to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2511267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2511266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/\u2018The-Dink-review-Jake-Johnsons-Apple-TV-comedy-swings-\u2014.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2511266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2511268,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511266\/revisions\/2511268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2511267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2511266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2511266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2511266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}