Battle Of The Sexes, The

Synopsis: A documentary about the historic 1973 court face-off between Billie Jean King, the No.1 female tennis player of her day, and Bobby Riggs, a one-time Grand Slam champion, now an opportunistic has-been and self-promoting male chauvinist.

James Erskine and Zara Hayes’ documentary is a first class production that weaves together social and sports history with psychological drama in an entertaining package that has a lot of fun with cheesy images of the 1960s ad-man’s idea of female fulfillment before the bra-burning feminist movement changed all that.

The film's focus is the iconic match between King and Riggs, a confrontation that in the heady '70s was a symbolic deal-maker, not just for women’s tennis but for women in general. In those days of radical social confrontation, Riggs’s canny stunt was to throw down the challenge that he, an over-the-hill 55 year old could beat the best that the current female tennis playing sorority could throw at him. Underpinning this was the more generalized implication that when it came to the crunch, any man was stronger/tougher/better that any woman.

The directors methodically builds her story to the big gender showdown. We are given the background of women’s competitive tennis of the day as it struggled against ingrained sexism and look at Australian player Margaret Court’s disastrous defeat by Riggs, a loss of nerve that led to King stepping up to the net to save the women’s movement from humiliation.

The impressively well-researched film combines present-day interviews with King and key figures of the time with contemporary newsreel footage ranging from civil rights marches and bra-burning demonstrations to press conference appearances by King and Riggs. It’s attention-grabbing material that climaxes with dramatic footage of the match which was watched by an estimated 90 million people worldwide.

It's early to call it, but The Battle Of The Sexes is a shoo-in to be one of the best documentaries of the year.

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