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Movies & TV Toronto International Film Festival 2018

Battle Of The Sexes

BATTLE OF THE SEXES SPEC D: Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton. USA. 121 min. Sep 10, 6 pm, Ryerson Sep 11, 2:30 pm, Princess of Wales Sep 15, 3 pm, Princess of Wales Sep 16, 5 pm, Ryerson. Rating: NNN


In 1973, Bobby Riggs (Steve Carrell) and Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) met on a tennis court in the Houston Astrodome to determine which gender was better at tennis. It was a stunt, but in an era defined by the sexual revolution and the battle for women’s rights it was a very meaningful one.

Directors Faris and Dayton (Little Miss Sunshine) tell Riggs’s and King’s stories in a seriocomic mode, following the personal turmoils each player endured over the months leading to their face-off. It’s a fertile premise, but the film somehow underperforms.

Simon Beaufoy’s script tries so hard to be even-handed in its storytelling that it winds up stuck in the mushy middle, arguing that Riggs only framed himself as a sexist asshole because he was a showman without confronting the impact of that decision. Carell’s terrific at playing vulnerable jerks, but this isn’t the best use of his talents.

Stone, on the other hand, is remarkably good at finding layers of self-doubt and self-loathing in every stage of King’s story, and her scenes with Andrea Riseborough (as King’s lover Marilyn Barnett) are electric.

I just found myself wishing Battle Of The Sexes had let itself be entirely about that, rather than a grudge match.

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