BATTLE OF THE SEXES (Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, 2017)

Much more than the trailers even glimpsed at, this production is among the best movie in years. This beautifully performed sports movie captures just the right balance between the deeply personal, well-crafted interpersonal turmoil, and the epic social feminist movement of the early 1970s. With an amazing script, Battle of the Sexes incorporated the difficult, poignant inner battle that confronted Billie Jean King as a woman as well as a symbol of experience that women faced by the patriarchal attitudes of the sixties and seventies. In an early scene President Nixon is heard congratulating Ms. King for becoming the first female athlete to make over $100,000 only later to have to face conservative Margaret Court from Australia later for the number one female position.

The excellent direction and performances of Emma Stone, Steve Carell, and Andrea Riseborough as a hairdresser in a crucial role in the movie, brought forth an in-depth and personally moving character portrait of Ms. King and Bobby Riggs and a cutting and riveting examination of the behind the scenes turmoil both of these real-life people possibly experienced. At the same time, the excitement and thrill of the sport of tennis is displayed along with its excruciating and exhilarating displays of talent, suspense, and frustration on the court. And as for the social movement, the movie offers up the gravity and the momentous stakes that were in play in 1973 when millions watched on ABC television the gender battle of the century.

The pacing, the sweepingly gorgeous and awesomely emotive silent moments, the hard-hitting sexual prejudice on display, the use of scintillating brilliant photographic styles, and the sensitive and balanced depiction of real humanity of almost all the characters bring both in the actors and the audience powerful emotions and meaningful reflection on an important social issue of then and even now.