Movie Reviews

There are tons of movies about sports. Baseball, golf and of course, boxing. Not too many about tennis though. And now all of a sudden, there are two: first there was ‘Borg vs. McEnroe’ and now ‘Battle Of The Sexes’, a retelling of the 1973 match between tennis star Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and former US Open winner Bobby Riggs (Steve Carrell).

It all kicks off when King and a group of other top female players decide to form their own tour, angry about the fact that they are not paid the same as men. Tired of seeing his glory days fade away, Riggs sees an opportunity to step back into the spotlights and challenges them to a ‘Battle Of The Sexes’. The match reached a global audience of 90 million people, and is widely credited with raising the profile of women’s tennis.

In spite of the serious and unfortunately still relevant subject matter, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (who previously brought us ‘Little Miss Sunshine’) turned ‘Battle Of The Sexes’ into a movie that is as nimble and quick on its feet as King herself. Stone does a great job of portraying Billie Jean King, while Carrell is equally impressive as the controversial Bobby ‘I’m gonna put the ‘show’ back in chauvinism’ Riggs.