Carell and the filmmakers are clearly having a ball as they re-create Riggs’ famous exhibition games, in which he handicapped himself by dressing as Bo-Peep (complete with live sheep) and playing with skillets instead of rackets.įor her part, King - played in a less physically convincing but quietly sympathetic turn by Emma Stone - wasn’t explicitly political at all. (Elisabeth Shue delivers a dignified, quietly bemused performance as his wife Priscilla). Portrayed in an uncannily spot-on impression by Steve Carell, Riggs comes across as a compulsive gambler eager to reclaim the spotlight and save his marriage. “Battle of the Sexes” looks beneath the ballyhoo and horsing around to provide context on the heightened stakes that informed Riggs and King’s confrontation. She beat him in straight sets, winning the $100,000 prize money and striking an epochal blow for women’s rights that made her an instant feminist icon.
King, the bespectacled, intensely focused workhorse, had been busy working out, honing the precision shots that would prove lethal to her opponent’s shockingly lethargic game. For weeks, Riggs, a notorious hustler, had been partying, pulling off stunts and playing the media instead of practicing. The showdown - hyped to hell and back before being staged at the Houston Astrodome - was comeuppance in the form of performative kitsch, with the competitors arriving in the midst of Vegas-like fanfare and gaudy retinues (leggy ladies for Riggs, bare-chested men for King). But Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris bring that era to life with verve and humor in “Battle of the Sexes,” a warm, earnestly entertaining film that revisits a pivotal 1973 match between a 55-year-old former Wimbledon champion named Bobby Riggs and 29-year-old tennis star Billie Jean King.
#SPIN MASTER BATTLE OF THE SEXES MOVIE#
Movie review: “Battle of the Sexes” a relevant spin on a 1970s tennis match – The Denver PostĪt a time when Venus and Serena Williams reign supreme - and seem to have done so forever - it’s difficult to visualize a time when the fight for gender equity in tennis was front-page news.