Apple TV is serving up a very specific kind of sports comedy with The Dink, a new film that turns pickleball — yes, pickleball — into the centre of one man’s bruised ego, family issues and extremely reluctant comeback.
Jake Johnson stars as Dusty Boyd, a former tennis prodigy whose career has fallen so far that he is now coaching unruly kids at his father’s suburban country club. Dusty is desperate for the approval of his father Chuck, played by Ed Harris, and initially backs Chuck’s campaign against the club’s newest obsession: pickleball. Naturally, things get awkward when Dusty aggravates an old injury and ends up needing the very sport he has been mocking.
That is where The Dink finds its comedy sweet spot. Pickleball is not treated as a noble sporting dream at first. For Dusty, it is humiliation in paddle form — the thing tennis players are not supposed to take seriously, until life backs them into a corner and makes them swing anyway.
Mary Steenburgen co-stars as Candace, the unexpected partner who helps pull Dusty deeper into the game. The cast also includes Ben Stiller, Chloe Fineman, Christine Taylor, Patton Oswalt, Martin Kove, Andy Roddick and John McEnroe, giving the film a strong mix of comedy names, sports-world credibility and very promising “someone is absolutely going to take this way too seriously” energy.
Directed by Josh Greenbaum and written by Sean Clements, The Dink looks like it is aiming for that sweet underdog sports-comedy lane: wounded pride, weird training, family tension, inappropriate competitiveness and one ridiculous game becoming emotionally important against everyone’s better judgment. Basically, the kind of film where grown adults start by saying “it’s just pickleball” and end up acting like the fate of civilisation depends on a dink shot.
For fans of easygoing sports comedies, this could be a very fun summer watch. It has Jake Johnson’s anxious everyman energy, Ben Stiller producing and appearing, Ed Harris looking stern around recreational athletics, and a premise that understands one universal truth: nothing makes people lose their minds quite like a low-stakes sport suddenly becoming personal.
The Dink premieres globally on Apple TV on July 24, 2026.
Video source: YouTube
