It’s 1973 and world number one Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) is fighting for women’s equality in tennis, founding the Women’s Tennis Association and facing her sexuality when Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) challenges her to the Battle of the Sexes tennis match.
Battle of the Sexes is an intriguing film with very good performances but one that sometimes seems to struggle injecting any momentum, something that really comes to the fore in the unexciting tennis scenes. It works best in the non tennis moments. Billie Jean’s romance with her hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough) is tender and heartfelt, the creation of the WTA and it’s beginnings are interesting but not delved into and Bobby Riggs’ antics off the court are hilarious.
Unfortunately the tennis scenes feel a little pedestrian and perhaps that’s because I was spoiled by Borg vs McEnroe earlier this year or it’s because the crucial match was fairly one sided.
As a drama about King’s achievements it’s great, as a sports biopic it’s less successful.
Phil the Bear's Film Reviews 
I didn’t find the tennis sequences unexciting – I thought it built up to them very well. That said the focus as you say is on the relationship which was very well acted, with both Stone and Riseborough on excellent form. As a footnote, after the match King and Riggs became very good friends (she spoke to him the night before he died) and the romantic relationship fell apart in a very bad way, almost destroying both women when it hit the press
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I think I may have been spoilt by Borg vs McEnroe earlier in the year because I just felt that they were unexciting and amateurish.
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I haven’t seen that yet – must catch up with it. Something that has struck me since seeing this – there has never been a tennis film which has been a box office success. Players and Wimbledon come to mind and both flopped – maybe it is not a sport which is interesting enough for cinema?
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