Battle of the Sexes (Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)

[TGM]

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

imdb

[TGM]

I thought this was a really damn good movie. Loved it, with yet another brilliant performance from Emma Stone, and a really empowering message on equality. The dynamic between Billie Jean, her husband, and her lover was especially compelling to see play out, in all of its complexities. Really can't recommend this one enough.

[Lazlo]

Stone and Carrell are delightful in this and the romance between Stone and Riseborough is really sweet and beautiful. I was really on board in the first half of this but it loses something in the second half. It becomes much more of a perfunctory non-fiction story.

I was really disappointed by how the climactic match was shot. It's a technical feat to recreate the match's television presentation, but where's the internal struggle of each player? Why spend 80% of the movie really letting us into each player's headspace and emotions and then completely wall us off from that in the climax? As it stands, it's just a bunch of shots of secondary characters watching TV. I'm not sure what the rationale behind that decision was.

[Peng]

I've long thought Steve Carell has trouble with dramatic material, tending to go one note, which makes him a bit of a dead-air in Foxcatcher, and just so grating in The Big Short. He's better here than in those roles since the character is a buffoon that requires a more comedic side of him. Still, watching this character at this point in time of 2017's turbulent year, especially after these last few months, literally makes me too nauseous, even if that's the point. More than countered by Emma Stone's great turn though, which feels less a biopic figure than a fully embodied, three dimensional character; she's so magnetic to watch in all her emotional range of navigating the complexities between her personal and public lives.

Apart from these two central performances, the film feels otherwise like Biopic Filmmaking 101, but I appreciate the screenplay's generosity of affording grace notes to so many characters, even Riggs and his wife (their last scene together is surprising in its resigned maturity). But especially to the trio of Billie Jean, her husband, and her lover, in which their emotionally charged scenes never feel like they're taking the easy, melodramatic way out. 6.5/10