Well-received by the critics, this work, with its distinctive aesthetic and rhythm, has enabled Mathieu Amalric to be seen by the profession and the public alike as a director in his own right in French auteur cinema, and not just as one of its leading players.

In the streets of Trieste, Italy, a young woman sets out to find a writer, Bobi Wohler, who never published a book during his lifetime, apart from his Italian translations of the works of Robert Musil and Franz Kafka.

This ghost-writer died in the 1960s and became a figure in the literary and intellectual milieu of this border town, which was nourished by the triple cultural influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the turn of the century, Italy at the beginning of its unity, and post-war Yugoslavia.

Over the course of an entire year, she makes four trips to the city (one per season), each lasting one day, interviewing old booksellers and people close to Wohler for her work, in an increasingly personal, quasi-metaphysical quest whose real reasons are not revealed - although it is probably academic research in nature.

[9] The desire and challenge of adapting this difficult, action-free novel about an impossible quest also took shape in the director's mind, given that Trieste is "virgin territory" for cinema, with no past references and far removed from the clichés and images of Italian cities.

Another important element of the adaptation is the filmmaker's choice to transform the novel's main character - who is a man - into a woman, following a suggestion by Jeanne Balibar, initially made in jest, to star in her partner's film,[8] and with the enthusiastic agreement of Daniele Del Giudice.

[8] A large number of scenes were shot with a very limited crew of just a few people,[9][15] depending on the light and the mood of the moment on the set, whether that of Jeanne Balibar or that of the director through his desire and his view of his actress, without prior preparation or special administrative authorization.

The book underlines the director's desire to make a work about "the emptiness and vertigo of decided non-creativity", which results in a film that is "mobile, physical, yet introspective and contemplative, with a powerful charm", and is particularly enthusiastic about its "rigorous direction" and "beautiful framing and lighting".

[26] In a similar vein, the weekly highlights the work of cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne, whose "elegant framing and natural lighting", combined with that of composer Grégoire Hetzel, help create a "beautiful film on its own" with "acute sensations".

[11] The same reticence was expressed in similar terms in L'Express on the DVD release in 2007, which noted that the film "lacks [a] little surprise to be completely convincing", despite the luminous presence of Jeanne Balibar.

In the UK, Le Stade de Wimbledon was well received, described as "a typically European film of ideas and mood, which is a beautiful, open, enigmatic fable", aptly likening its ending to that of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966).

On the one hand, IndieWire's critic enthused about the film, calling it "the most valuable discovery [of the festival], [...] small on plot, big on ideas", noting in particular the "sincere, delicate style, genuine tenderness [...] or deep love for each of the characters[29]".

[34][35] The magazines Positif and Télérama make a similar analysis, calling the transposition of Daniele Del Giudice into Mathieu Amalric and himself into Jeanne Balibar "highly productive of meaning ".

[33] However, despite the softness of the lights and the passing of the seasons, the mystery of Triest is not devoid of an element of anguish, which is particularly evident in the windsurfing scene at sea, where the narrator suddenly sees a figurative - and perhaps reflective of her personal life - abyss opening up beneath her, as indicated by her cry of anguish in the London night after a failed evening in a pub[35] - that marks a climax with the state of her own research and her confrontation with the absence of totally satisfactory answers and reasons to explain Bobi Wohler/Bazlen's literary rejection.

[16][8][9] Apart from a few location scouts for certain scenes in which the sun's reflections play on the walls (in the cafés), the main thing was to "catch the world's photogenic light "[16] as and when it presented itself, as we wandered the streets, beaches and places of Trieste.