Battle of the Sexes — London Film Festival Review
Battle of the Sexes, based on the real-life 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, is a good underdog sports story with lots to like that unfortunately doesn’t stand out enough to be truly great, despite some electric performances and — as sad as it is to admit — a large amount of relevance to current times. It’s an unfortunately rote movie from Little Miss Sunshine directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, although it’s still a worthy watch, in no small part due to one of Emma Stone’s strongest performances yet.
Stone plays 29-year-old King, one of the top female players in the sport at the time and a prominent women’s lib activist, who forms her own female-only tennis league when the heads of the US Lawn Tennis Association refuse to consider anything even close to equal prize money. As their league begins to attract attention, she eventually agrees to play a spectacle match against Riggs (Steve Carell), a 55-year-old former pro and current hustler and showman who decides to style himself as the ultimate chauvinist pig for extra publicity. And there’s some stuff about their respective love lives because y’know of course there is.
It’s this latter element which lets the movie down for me. Riggs’ separation from his wife Priscilla isn’t prevalent enough to really become an issue, but King’s budding romance with hairdresser Marilyn feels too uninspired to really stand out, with somewhat lifeless scripting (from Slumdog Millonaire’s Simon Beaufoy) and a concept — married woman embarks on secret lesbian affair — that has been done far better in many other pictures. This leads to much of the film leading up to the titular match falling oddly flat, with the writing failing to sell the amount of time given to the love story and meaning King — the movie’s de facto main character — is one of the least entertaining to watch too much of the time.
In comparison, the themes of female empowerment and battling for equality hit hard, especially when you realise how little has changed subconsciously in the 44 years between match and movie. The dialogue can feel a little on-the-nose with its execution of “women should stay in the kitchen and men should be in charge”, but it’s more forgivable when you consider that this is still a huge issue today, and many details are so true to life that it made me wince.
The main draw of this movie are the performances, which are fantastic across-the-board. Stone is absolutely stupendous as King, completely inhabiting the role and letting the audience feel every element of her emotional journey, from frustration to weariness to joy. I predict a second consecutive Oscar nom in her future. Carell is a lesser character both in screentime and thematic elements, but nevertheless is a freaking blast as Riggs, playing the character’s showman edge to perfection and clearly having an insane amount of him with the guy’s silly publicity stunts — a montage of him playing in various costumes is the comedic highlight of a movie that ultimately isn’t anywhere near as funny as advertised.
Another highlight is Andrea Riseborough as Marilyn — it’s very disappointing that these scenes don’t work so well on the writing side, because the two sell the hell out of their love story. And there are also great supporting performances from awesome actors such as Sarah Silverman, Alan Cumming, Natalie Morales, Bill Pullman, and Jessica McNamee. The direction isn’t usually much to write home about, with many of the matches sticking to the regular shots you would see on TV, but it does help show the physicality and athleticism of one of the toughest competitive sports.
Overall Battle of the Sexes has proven to be the least impressive movie I’ve seen at the LFF so far, although that isn’t saying a lot considering the high quality of films up to now. It’s far from the most original movie, but still offers up enough winning performances and strong themes to be a good example of the sports movie.
