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film review

Emma Stone and Steve Carell in the Battle of the Sexes.Melinda Sue Gordon

The premise (a recreation of one of the most ballyhooed sporting moments of the 1970s, a tennis match between women's libber Billie Jean King and chauvinist Bobby Riggs) and the talent (a bespectacled Emma Stone, a bespectacled Steve Carell and a scene-stealing Sarah Silverman) make this a promising venture from the start. But directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton move beyond the ready-made charisma of the serve-and-volley shenanigans to offer a contextualized portrait of the closet-lesbian King and her fight against sexism and the social mores of the time. Stone is solid in the role. Carell is perfectly cast as the showman-hustler Riggs, but he gets less screen time than his tennis-playing stunt double. The film is surprisingly timely: Today's fierce, revitalized misogyny makes the 1970s male chauvinism droll and quaint in comparison. Back then a women's tennis tour was sponsored by Virginia Slims cigarettes. The empowering slogan was "You've come a long way, baby." But have they?

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