I did not see Battle of the Sexes in theaters because I’m still angry with Emma Stone for La La Land, but I dutifully added it to my queue because of my fondness for cocky women athletes. Well, I should not have bothered. Other than the opening impressionistic depiction of Billie Jean King in motion, you have to wait fifty-eight minutes before you see her get serious about the game. Welcome to the Peter principle, the Emma Stone edition, when she has finally reached the level of her incompetence.
I still like Stone, but she fails to disappear into her character. The whole film seems like a bait and switch. Come for the legendary tennis match between King and Bobby Riggs, stay for the tender awakening of her sexuality. To be fair, there are not a lot of movie depictions of lesbian women in heterosexual relationships realizing that they are gay so Battle of the Sexes has value and can even be seen as revolutionary for representing a lesbian meet cute story in such a conventional rom com way, but perhaps it would have been more accurate to not romanticize the affair since this particular love interest could have been an opportunistic gold digger who outed King and did not end up being the one. Just use a different title and don’t shoot everything through rose-colored lens. I just hate when women are defined by relationships more than their abilities.
Compared to I, Tonya, Queen of Katwe and Molly’s Game, Battle of the Sexes is less dynamic and interesting. The early scenes in the movie are devoted to concerns about hair and fashion because girls and solidarity cheese. The film constantly pulls punches and strives to make the battle for equality likeable, relatable and approachable, which is fine for a made for TV movie, but diminishes what they actually accomplished, particularly Gladys Heldman, who is played hilariously by Sarah Silverman, but I imagine that creating your own tournament consisted of more than being funny. A good movie helps you understand and appreciate their achievements.
I’ve heard plenty of people say that Steve Carrell was Riggs, and I’m a sports atheist so I have no reference point to objectively judge whether or not he fully embodied his character. I have seen him in a number of dramatic roles (Foxcatcher, The Big Short, Café Society), and I found his performance in Battle of the Sexes to be his least interesting. His character is pretty flat-without attention, he feels isolated even when he is around his family. He may be a gambler, but his real problem is being a fame whore. The film does a good job of visually reflecting this sense of desolation early in the film before giving way to his manic user pose, but other than other characters like his long suffering wife or his adult son reflecting disappointment on their face, the viewer is not taken on a journey to discover how this process changed him.
Battle of the Sexes does make an interesting Venn diagram of Riggs and King as having secret lives hidden from their spouses. If we applaud King’s awakening, should we be making a similar parallel conclusion with Riggs coming out as a hustler and accept him instead of taking his chauvinism on face value? The film seems to suggest that we should give the old guy a break because he didn’t really believe any of this nonsense. Um, yeah, really bad timing to ask for understanding, guys. When there are actually consequences to bad behavior, ask for mercy, but until then you can go fuck yourself for wanting to be bad and be treated as if you weren’t. Live with the disapproval. It is literally the least that you can do, and you’re probably able to ignore it anyway.
The best part of Battle of the Sexes is Alan Cumming in a brief supporting role. In a few brief moments, he acts rings around everyone combined and closes with the show stopping line, “Times change. You should know. You just changed them. Some day we will be free to be who we are and love who we love.” If it was not for Cumming, I would say that the movie isn’t worth your time, but his poignant, emotional resonant delivery of that line made it worth this cinematic exercise in insulting my intelligence.