Movie of the Week: Battle of the Sexes
A strong biopic anchored by Emma Stone (and the legend that she portrays) that leaves a little to be desired as a sports movie.
It’s movie season again! And by that I mean “It’s (good) movie season again!” While this year wasn’t the usual horrific summer of superhero slog and franchise reboots (see: Baby Driver, Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde), it still always feels nice to get to the time of the year when the Oscar hopefuls and quality mid-budget standalones hit theaters. In honor of the slate of new movies starting to hit the big screen, I have decided (at least for now; we’ll see how long this lasts) to see roughly one movie per week, and write a few thoughts on it. I guess the format of jamming my opinions down everyone’s throats on social media just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore.
Anyway, the structure will generally look like this: I’ll give a really quick plot description with minimal spoilers, what I thought of that week’s film, and then whether or not I think it fits the bill for you to spend your hard-earned cash to go see it based on what you want your movie-going experience to be. For example, this is what I might have said about Dunkirk: “If you want a pulse-raising, white-knuckled, incredibly personal war movie that is completely Christopher Nolan-ized (in a good way), see it immediately. If you want to see a lot of Tom Hardy’s face, not the film for you.”
Okay. So, Battle of the Sexes. If you remember the early 1970’s, then you probably already have a general idea of what this movie is about. Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs. For those that aren’t familiar: Billie Jean King was, at the time, well on her way to becoming the greatest female tennis player ever. Mr. Riggs was a formerly great male tennis player who had been out of the professional circuit for some time. With King at the height of her powers and Riggs strapped for cash, he concocted a gimmick that would interest both tennis fans and agnostics alike. Women’s lib tennis champion versus “chauvinist pig” retiree. Battle of the Sexes, it was dubbed. A tennis match with the entirety of gender equality on the line.
But the movie does not simply follow the story of the tennis match itself. It digs deep into the personal lives of both King (played by the always-strong Emma Stone. More on her in a bit) and Riggs (Steve Carell the icon). Particularly, the film focuses on the struggle King has with her sexuality during this period in her life. She is thrust into a tug-of-war between the woman she truly loves and the man she is married to at the time, all during a point in time where same-sex love was, frankly, not culturally accepted. King grapples with the risk of losing her career because of her sexual orientation as well as being treated like a second-class athlete just because she is a woman, and after initially not wanting to get sucked into Riggs’ gimmicky showdown, she eventually decides to take him on. Seeing who won is just a google search away, but I’m going to leave that up to you.
Emma Stone is the clear star of the film (duh). She carries it from a somewhat bland retelling of a story that a lot of people already knew to a truly emotional portrait of a woman who never stopped fighting to be respected. The character of King as a whole dwarfs pretty much everything else in this movie. And why not? Simultaneously, we have a person who is fighting for equal rights because of her gender, someone who is forced to conceal her homosexuality because of what the public might think, and someone grappling with the constant fear of failure because she was born into the curse of being a hyper-competitive athlete. She wants nothing more than to be the best, and to be recognized as such– regardless of any other ancillary factors in her life. Between the strength of the writing, the strength of the acting, and the strength of the woman herself, Billie Jean King is the absolute focal point of the film. Next to her, no one else really stands out at all (except of course for the genius of comedic acting that is Steve Carell). I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Stone received her second consecutive Oscar nomination (and third in four years) for her work here.
At the end of the day, Battle of the Sexes is a very-good-but-not-great movie that is carried by its lead performance. The film seems caught in-between being a very high-quality sports movie and trying to be an Oscar contender. I think it still works very well as a movie, but might have been better served to jump in one lane or the other and fully embrace it. Even still, there are a number of pretty sweet tennis sequences, as well as emotional scenes, that will please just about everyone. There’s not a whole lot more you can ask out of a movie.
Should you see it?
“I consider myself to be an Emma Stone and/or Billie Jean King fan.”– See it now.
“I enjoy Steve Carell making an ass out of himself.”– Not top-notch Carell, but he’s always good for a number of laughs. You’ll probably enjoy it. Similarly…
“Sure, I’d like to see 99% of Steve Carell’s naked body.”– Like I said, this movie will please just about everyone.
“I’m looking for a really good tennis movie.”– The tennis aspects (for me) left something to be desired a little bit. If you’re looking for a straight-up sports movie that occasionally takes breaks for character development, this is not that. Let the amount of money you’re willing to spend on a single viewing of a movie determine whether you see this in theaters or wait for streaming.
“I think that women are the inferior gender.”– Probably not the movie for you or any of your brothers at Sigma Chi.
“I want to see an Oscars powerhouse.”– Battle of the Sexes is a very good movie, but (aside from Stone) is one that will probably not garner a lot of love at the Academy Awards. It’s a mostly easy-going biopic with a few emotional scenes and a few tennis sequences tossed in. That said, I still think it’s worth a trip to the movies for a lot of people. If you’re a stickler for dropping twelve bucks to sit in a chair that 50 million dirty humans have sat in to watch a movie, then this would be just as good of a film if you waited to stream it on Apple TV or Amazon or HBO or wherever. All in all, it’s just a pleasant watch.
Next week: Bladerunner 2049.