Film Review - Battle of the Sexes (12A)

Times change. You know that. You've just changed them.

I was not quite six when the so-called 'Battle of the Sexes' took place. That's the tennis match between ex-World Number One Bobby Riggs and rising star Billie Jean King, which acted as a bizarre test-case for how female athletes should be regarded and paid. This carnival show-tournament, initiated by Riggs, cut to the heart of US gender politics - the wider 'battle' between 1970s women's libbers and chauvinistic male attitudes. Already the subject of a 2015 documentary, the King-Riggs showdown has now been dramatised, with Emma Stone and Steve Carell squaring up to each other on court and off.

Stone and Carell are a proven pairing, having shared screen time in Stupid Crazy Love, and here they both shine. The La La Land Oscar winner plays Billie Jean at a point when she's leading America's female tennis players in revolt against the US Lawn Tennis Association over a vast gender pay-gap. She's also wrestling with her own sexuality and the potential unravelling of her marriage. All in all a stressful time.

Carell's ex-champ Riggs has issues of his own. A gambling addict whose habit is effectively funded by his wife, he offers $100,000 prize money to any female tennis player who will take him on, branding himself a 'male chauvinist pig' who can beat any of them. It's a lure that King cannot resist.

Sticking closely to these remarkable real-life events, Battle of the Sexes has a grainy documentary feel at times. Even its tennis sequences are shot like '70s sports footage. The directorial team who brought us Little Miss Sunshine (and God bless them for doing so), linger on the character moments with the deliberately easy pace of a movie from that era. Meanwhile the screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire) refuses to paint characters simply, aside perhaps from Bill Pullman's commentator and boys-club reactionary Jack Kramer.

The result is an absorbing drama, where we spend equal time with equally appealing leads. Stone is authentic as ever - vulnerable but determined, with a canny sense of humour when dealing with the patronising media. Carell meanwhile makes Riggs hilarious - a consummate hustler and showman, whose sexist credentials ('I'm going to put the 'show' back in chauvinism') are maybe more comedic bluster than heartfelt ideology. The bantering between him and King for the cameras is pure pantomime, in keeping with the 'Battle of the Sexes' circus.

The match itself, though, is in dead earnest.

This film never loses its sense of the stakes - for King, for women's sports or for equality in general. Stone plays the weight of expectation perfectly, while we're constantly reminded of all those old-boys willing her to fail. Her burgeoning relationship with a young hairdresser (Andrea Riseborough, commendably unrecognisable from The Death of Stalin) only increases the pressure, however tenderly those moments are portrayed. 

Battle of the Sexes captures a significant moment in gender politics with humour and power. As with the best retelling of true stories, it invests set-in-stone events with genuine tension. You'll be entertained by Bobby's ludicrous antics, but it's Billie Jean you'll be rooting for.

Gut Reaction: Engrossed throughout. Carell made me laugh, Stone moved me. And the final confrontation really gripped.

Ed's Verdict: A solidly-made, splendidly-acted reminder - those male dinosaurs may still be clinging on, but forty-four years ago they'd already met their match. It's time we all accepted the fact.