film fatales #207: battle of the sexes (jonathan dayton and valerie faris, 2017)

Battle of the Sexes tells the story of an event that resonated at the time it occurred, but is perhaps not well-known today. Former tennis great and hustler Bobby Riggs challenged top women tennis players (a la Andy Kaufman in pro rassling) to big-stakes matches. His first was against then-champ Margaret Court, who he beat, setting up a 1973 match with Billie Jean King that got tremendous hype, a big Astrodome crowd, and national live television coverage. King had no problem beating Riggs, and her victory was seen, not just as a win for women's tennis, but a win for women (this was at the height of the second-wave feminist movement).

It's a good subject for a movie, and Emma Stone and Steve Carell do well as the two tennis players. The directing team of Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton made a splash with their first feature together, Little Miss Sunshine, which garnered four Oscar nominations, with two wins. I was not in the majority on that one ... I thought its supposed touting of the power of being different was ultimately only a desire to redefine "normal". Battle of the Sexes is an improvement on that, although it didn't get any Oscar love, and lost money while Little Miss Sunshine was a hit. The problem here is that I don't know that Battle of the Sexes is necessary. The story is worth telling, and the stars are good, but in the end, a documentary about the event could be just as useful (there was a 2013 documentary titled The Battle of the Sexes that didn't get a lot of attention). This movie was enjoyable to watch but inessential.