☆☆☆☆½
In Battle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King knows the stakes of what she's doing, but the wonder of the film is that even if we know the broad strokes of the story, that tennis match between King and Bobby Riggs, we're so focused on the specifics of the people involved that we forget about what it all means.
And that's what makes Battle of the Sexes into a fantastic movie -- bold, funny, tense and emotionally resonant. In its final minutes, the film, which was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (of Little Miss Sunshine) and written by Simon Beaufoy (of Slumdog Millionaire), Battle of the Sexes pulls back to show the really big picture -- the match was both a gaudy, ridiculous spectacle and a genuine commentary on gender equality. It's a dazzling display, in large part because the rest of the movie knows to pull back.
Most of the movie is about the complicated, difficult people who took to the tennis court that day, and of the two the movie primarily focuses on King, and rightly so. Hers is a story of awareness and awakening; if a really great story finds its main characters in very different places at the end than at the beginning, Battle of the Sexes is really great.
A winning, perfectly pitched performance by Emma Stone finds a deeply conflicted woman inside the public persona of King. She's as surprised as anyone when she finds herself physically and emotionally attracted to another woman (Andrea Riseborough, whose aloofness is the film's sole weakness) -- and also as surprised as anyone to find that a challenge by the crass self-named male chauvinist pig Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) stirs her in ways she never expected.
It's about equality, yes. King is prodded and goaded by women's tennis promoter Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman, simultaneously edgy and restrained) to be the public face of equal pay. But Beaufoy's screenplay finds an undercurrent of early gay rights activism in the story, too -- and, most importantly of all, a message of self-confidence.
Already the No. 1 women's tennis player in the world by the time the movie opens in 1972, King is hardly a shrinking violet. But she's driven more by her passion and her sense of justice than by self-aggrandizement. The same could not be said for Riggs, whose macho swagger seems so over-the-top by today's standards that he's almost laughable.
Like King, though, there are sides to Riggs that no one sees, not even himself, and even if he's the antagonist here, Battle of the Sexes won't work if he's the villain. The film finds a surprising humanity in his intolerable attitude, and one remarkable scene with his wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue, who shines in a small but pivotal role) is heartbreaking for its emotional honesty.
Similarly, there's beautiful interplay between Stone and Austin Stowell as her handsome, painfully aware husband, who comes across as so in love with and committed to his wife that he wants to see her become a full person -- even though the cost will be his relationship with her. Stowell begins the movie as a caricature of a blank blond stud and ends as the second most-intriguing person in the story.
But it's Stone's film as much as it's King's story, and she is utterly convincing playing a historical celebrity whose image and destiny we know before the lights go down. That Battle of the Sexes had the audience I saw it with cheering despite full advance knowledge of the outcome is in large part because Stone's so damned good, confident yet tenuous, brave yet scared.
It doesn't hurt, either, that everything about the movie's look and feel gets the era exactly right. Technologically, there are moments that rival anything in, say, Forest Gump for the seamless interplay between vintage footage and new material, but Battle for the Sexes casts such a spell that none of that visual trickery dawns on us while watching. That's a feat in and of itself.
But there's no feat as big as this one: This dissection of what has always seemed a frivolous media stunt winds up being stirring, emotionally resonant and even politically relevant, a feel-good winner that leaves you both smiling and thinking -- and hoping that, like the familiar cigarette slogan featured prominently in the film, we really have come a long way, baby. Let's just hope it hasn't all been for naught.
Viewed September 30, 2017 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1930
And that's what makes Battle of the Sexes into a fantastic movie -- bold, funny, tense and emotionally resonant. In its final minutes, the film, which was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (of Little Miss Sunshine) and written by Simon Beaufoy (of Slumdog Millionaire), Battle of the Sexes pulls back to show the really big picture -- the match was both a gaudy, ridiculous spectacle and a genuine commentary on gender equality. It's a dazzling display, in large part because the rest of the movie knows to pull back.
Most of the movie is about the complicated, difficult people who took to the tennis court that day, and of the two the movie primarily focuses on King, and rightly so. Hers is a story of awareness and awakening; if a really great story finds its main characters in very different places at the end than at the beginning, Battle of the Sexes is really great.
A winning, perfectly pitched performance by Emma Stone finds a deeply conflicted woman inside the public persona of King. She's as surprised as anyone when she finds herself physically and emotionally attracted to another woman (Andrea Riseborough, whose aloofness is the film's sole weakness) -- and also as surprised as anyone to find that a challenge by the crass self-named male chauvinist pig Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) stirs her in ways she never expected.
It's about equality, yes. King is prodded and goaded by women's tennis promoter Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman, simultaneously edgy and restrained) to be the public face of equal pay. But Beaufoy's screenplay finds an undercurrent of early gay rights activism in the story, too -- and, most importantly of all, a message of self-confidence.
Already the No. 1 women's tennis player in the world by the time the movie opens in 1972, King is hardly a shrinking violet. But she's driven more by her passion and her sense of justice than by self-aggrandizement. The same could not be said for Riggs, whose macho swagger seems so over-the-top by today's standards that he's almost laughable.
Like King, though, there are sides to Riggs that no one sees, not even himself, and even if he's the antagonist here, Battle of the Sexes won't work if he's the villain. The film finds a surprising humanity in his intolerable attitude, and one remarkable scene with his wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue, who shines in a small but pivotal role) is heartbreaking for its emotional honesty.
Similarly, there's beautiful interplay between Stone and Austin Stowell as her handsome, painfully aware husband, who comes across as so in love with and committed to his wife that he wants to see her become a full person -- even though the cost will be his relationship with her. Stowell begins the movie as a caricature of a blank blond stud and ends as the second most-intriguing person in the story.
But it's Stone's film as much as it's King's story, and she is utterly convincing playing a historical celebrity whose image and destiny we know before the lights go down. That Battle of the Sexes had the audience I saw it with cheering despite full advance knowledge of the outcome is in large part because Stone's so damned good, confident yet tenuous, brave yet scared.
It doesn't hurt, either, that everything about the movie's look and feel gets the era exactly right. Technologically, there are moments that rival anything in, say, Forest Gump for the seamless interplay between vintage footage and new material, but Battle for the Sexes casts such a spell that none of that visual trickery dawns on us while watching. That's a feat in and of itself.
But there's no feat as big as this one: This dissection of what has always seemed a frivolous media stunt winds up being stirring, emotionally resonant and even politically relevant, a feel-good winner that leaves you both smiling and thinking -- and hoping that, like the familiar cigarette slogan featured prominently in the film, we really have come a long way, baby. Let's just hope it hasn't all been for naught.
Viewed September 30, 2017 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1930
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