Battle Of The Sexes
On the rising swell of the second wave of feminism, women in the early 1970s were demanding gender equivalence in all things, including prize money for a sport in which they had always been equally proficient – tennis. Couple this social agitation with a loud-mouthed, unapologetically chauvinistic retired male tennis star who is in dire financial straits due to his gambling addiction and you get the gladiator style tennis match billed as The Battle Of The Sexes.
Steve Carell plays Bobby Riggs, the 55 year old tennis legend who challenges female number one, Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) to a dual.
While the sensational 1973 tennis match forms the basis of the plot, the film also explores politics of the time and the respective personal lives of King and Riggs.
Riggs struggles with his job, marriage and insatiable need to make big bets. Carell plays him bombastically while still managing to portray several emotional levels.
Stone’s King, on the other hand, is insipid and flat. Her affair with Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) is depicted candidly, but this only divides the films focus so that no one story is told thoroughly.
The eponymous tennis match is genuinely thrilling but because of the soft lead-up, it doesn’t really feel like the climax of the story. And perhaps, arguably, it isn’t.
Still, it’s worth a view, if only to see Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee) get thrashed by Riggs.
★★★
Reviewed by Rita Bratovich
