Battle of the Sexes (2017)

Battle of the Sexes (2017): written by Simon Beaufoy; directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris; starring Emma Stone (Billie Jean King), Steve Carrell (Bobby Riggs), Bill Pullman (Mustachio Twirling Villain), Alan Cumming (Gay Fashion Designer Yoda), Andrea Riseborough (Saintly Lesbian Hairdresser), Austin Stowell (Saintly Husband of Billie Jean King), and Sarah Silverman (Never Properly Identified Tennis Something):

Oh for captions or brief expository spurts of dialogue! Battle of the Sexes is about the famous inter-gender tennis match of 1973 between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. It's also about getting fair wages for professional female tennis players, King's gradual coming-out process, Bobbie Riggs' problems with family and gambling, and Howard Cosell's giant, invasive hands. Without captions or exposition, some characters never come into focus. For example, I have no idea who Sarah Silverman's sassy character was or what her official relationship to the women's tennis tour was.

The movie mostly tells but doesn't show such important things as King's current excellence and Riggs' past excellence on the court in the build-up to the match. Margaret Court might as well have a mustache to twirl as the anti-feminist side-villain of the piece. Bill Pullman plays some male chauvinist guy who runs something to do with women's tennis. What? No real idea. He's a promoter. Or maybe he's head of the North American Ladies' Lawn Tennis Association. Or maybe he's just reliable Bill Pullman!

We are shown a lot of King's burgeoning relationship with a female hairdresser in the lead-up to the match. This is a case of Hollywood Screenwriting 101 and its love of twinning a personal and public narrative. In reality, the (married) King had been seeing the woman in question for two years prior to the Battle of the Sexes. And the woman wasn't a hairdresser. She was King's personal assistant. And that same personal assistant sued King a few years later for 'Palimony' after their relationship ended. 

The narrative streamlines this messy, human story into a tale of a saintly lesbian hairdresser, a saintly female tennis player, and a saintly, understanding husband for King. Hollywood turns everyone into either saints or sinners, it seems, in the slurry-making process of the 'biopic.' The upshot is that King and the hairdresser are too saintly to be interesting -- Steve Carrell and Sarah Silverman get all the fun lines and fun things to do. Riggs' long-suffering wife and long-suffering adult son are also saintly and sanitized.

The acting keeps things afloat despite the often deadly dull first hour and the relative lack of actual scenes of tennis-playing. Emma Stone is fine as King, and Steve Carrell is also fine as Bobby Riggs. As Billie Jean King's husband, Austin Stowell is a portrait of wounded decency. The last 40 minutes rescues the first 80, but just barely. Lightly recommended.

Detectiveness

Christine: adapted from the Stephen King novel by Bill Phillips; directed by John Carpenter; starring Keith Gordon (Arnie Cunningham), John Stockwell (Dennis Guilder), Alexandra Paul (Leigh Cabot), Robert Prosky (Will Darnell) and Harry Dean Stanton (Detective Junkins) (1983): Competent adaptation of King's horror novel never quite soars, possibly because of budgetary restrictions -- the epic car chases of the novel have instead become epic studies in stupidity, as people try to escape the homicidal car by running down the middle of the road. Because that always works so well.

The script also errs in trying to squeeze in the entire timeline of King's lengthy novel, resulting in the triumph of plot over character. Carpenter manages some nice set-pieces and one truly great image involving fiery cars and fiery bodies, and the whole thing isn't boring -- just a bit frustrating. The acting by the leads is fine, though Harry Dean Stanton is wasted as a police detective, and Robert Prosky and Roberts Blossom blow the young leads off the screen whenever they share a scene. Lightly recommended.


Zero Effect: written and directed by Jake Kasdan; starring Bill Pullman (Daryl Zero), Ben Stiller (Steve Arlo), Ryan O'Neal (Gregory Stark) and Kim Dickens (Gloria Sullivan) (1998): Jake Kasdan's first film as a writer-director is clearly a labour of love, complete with a certain self-indulgence when it comes to trimming the fat off the film.

A modern riff on Sherlock Holmes, Zero Effect follows Holmes-like Daryl Zero and his assistant Steve Arlo as they unravel a case of blackmail. Pullman does surprisingly well as the twitchy, weird Zero -- indeed, casting decisions even in 1998 would have suggested that Kasdan accidentally reversed the casting of the two leads. The result is the sort of detective movie that would have been right at home in the theatres of 1974, but which vanished without a trace in 1998. Which is too bad, because I'd have liked to see more weirdly titled cases of Daryl Zero. Recommended.