Battle of the Sexes

Friday night was a windy and wet one here in the city, so once the evenings chores were done it was time to settle in for a movie.  A 99c special was what drew me to seeing this one, the story of the lead up to the 1973 tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King.  I was just a small child at the time, so wasn't aware of much of the era of the story line, but enjoyed that it seemed to portray pretty accurately what was happening in society at the time.

At the time, in womens tennis in the US, men were being offered 8x the prize money, as the girls were told that the men were the real draw, and they weren't filling the seats.  55 year old Bobby Riggs offered a $100,000 prize money if Billie Jean King could beat him in a tennis tournament,  because he shouted out that he could beat any woman currently  playing.

Emma Stone and Steve Carell did an excellent job in playing these characters, and although I felt transported to the time, and invested in the story it just came off a little flat to me, some spark was missing, it felt like there was no real magic moment that would make this a memorable movie.  3/5