Battle Of The Sexes (12A.)
Directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton
Starring Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Natalie Morales, Bill Pullman, Elisabeth Shue, Sarah Silverman and Alan Cumming. 121 mins.
It may be a battle, but it's not much of a battle. You'd expect this telling of the back story to the 1973 exhibition tennis match between the female no 1 Billie Jean King (Stone) and 55-year-old Bobby Riggs (Carell) to be fixed, but the fix is less convincing then you'd imagine. Every poster features Stone smiling benignly at Carell, and the film is much like the event it replays: it calls itself a battle but is really just a friendly.
Stone makes for a beguiling and compelling Billie Jean. She seems too slight to be the sportsman she portrays but, like Will Smith as Mohammed Ali, that works for her. Her Velma-from-Scooby Doo look makes her more swotty than sporty. Carell's Riggs, a former Wimbledon champion resentful of playing for peanuts on the senior circuit, is more comic buffoon, but with some depth. Carell plays him as an opportunist who creates an Austin Powers persona to drum up business: he's the man who "put the show into the chauvinism."
It's just as well that the film has these two great performances to centre on because every other character is a cypher. As a whole, the film gives audiences very little to get hold of. It's a perfectly pleasant watch, but far too nice to carry any weight.
Directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton
Starring Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Natalie Morales, Bill Pullman, Elisabeth Shue, Sarah Silverman and Alan Cumming. 121 mins.
It may be a battle, but it's not much of a battle. You'd expect this telling of the back story to the 1973 exhibition tennis match between the female no 1 Billie Jean King (Stone) and 55-year-old Bobby Riggs (Carell) to be fixed, but the fix is less convincing then you'd imagine. Every poster features Stone smiling benignly at Carell, and the film is much like the event it replays: it calls itself a battle but is really just a friendly.
Stone makes for a beguiling and compelling Billie Jean. She seems too slight to be the sportsman she portrays but, like Will Smith as Mohammed Ali, that works for her. Her Velma-from-Scooby Doo look makes her more swotty than sporty. Carell's Riggs, a former Wimbledon champion resentful of playing for peanuts on the senior circuit, is more comic buffoon, but with some depth. Carell plays him as an opportunist who creates an Austin Powers persona to drum up business: he's the man who "put the show into the chauvinism."
It's just as well that the film has these two great performances to centre on because every other character is a cypher. As a whole, the film gives audiences very little to get hold of. It's a perfectly pleasant watch, but far too nice to carry any weight.
