Personal Best

This is far and away the sexiest movie I have ever seen. But all you folks who enjoy seeing great big breasts, forget it. Also, if the sight of muscular, slender, not fat, women does not turn you on, forget it. Ms Hemingway and Ms donnelly are both gorgeous ladies; Ms Donnelly has the most beautiful face I have ever seen. Forget the story; there may never have been a story; it is about female pentathletes training for the 1980 Olympics, with the conflicts among the two ladies, their coach and the father of one of the ladies. The movie has a happy ending--I think. I won't worry about it. The dialogue, a lot of the time, is as if the actors are making it up as they go along. Sometimes it works. By far the greatest fault is the mushmouth delivery of the players. If the director had wanted desperately to guarantee that the audience not understand what the characters are saying, he could not have succeeded any better than he did. Would the director recognize a consonant if he could have heard one in this movie? The photography is magnificent: a lot of slow motion, long telephoto shots of the ladies in action on the field. Also, some composite (Maybe that's what they could be called.) shots of one particular activity, in slow motion, switching from one athlete to the next to the next to the next ... as the activity proceeds. Absolutely beautiful! My rating, above, is not for me, necessarily; it is my estimate of what more nearly normal folks would rate it. As for me, I will probably watch it another dozen times. I may leave the sound off, but ...; oh well, maybe two dozen times more!

I was lucky that I began seeing films when I did. The beginnings were auspicious - "Far from the Madding Crowd", "Butch Cassidy", "If ...." - but, much as I thought all of these were wonderful films, much as all but "If ...." have stayed with me all this time, I never viewed any of them but once until the advent of DVD, and I'd qualify none as "my favourite film". My favourite film is on offer right here, and it was something I saw four times on its first run.

One thing about "Personal Best" that has, I think, inhibited its recognition is the fact that nobody much has really seen it for what it is. Coming out in 1982, a year after "Chariots of Fire" had taken North America by storm (I've never figured that out yet), "Personal Best" was labelled as a track-and-field film. It also was a new sort of shocker, so the Lesbian theme got a lot of play, and, indeed, one reviewer headed his piece "Chariots of Desire". Its resurgence today is what's apparently "cult status" as a Lesbian film, although a cultist in 2008 would probably remark on the absence of raunch.

I spotted in 1982, and saw even more clearly today, that the film has a nice Californian theme - expectations, how we handle other people's expectations, and how we turn them into competitiveness. It's really the story of Chris - how she outgrows her father's expectations, Tingloff's expectations, and even her lover Tory's expectations - to take control of what she really wants for herself, an Olympic pentathlon place. The end (BIT OF A SPOILER) is wonderful in the process, with Chris persuading the injured Tory to forget what's expected of her and go for the victory she too wants for herself.

Towne's great risk, asking as much improvisation as he could of his cast rather than handing them a fully-written screenplay, has worked wonderfully. Scott Glenn, with the most professional experience, has done it best and produced a Tingloff nowhere near the monster the athletes make him out to be; the other professional principal, Mariel Hemingway's still soft and immature Chris, can also imagine good lines (and tearful faces) for herself. But it's an amateur, Patrice Donnelly as the hard-edged and competitive Tory, who turns out to be the best natural actress. And I'll say only one thing about the Lesbian theme; the Donnelly-Hemingway love scenes, react as you will, are moving, MOVING.

Track and field has to play a part. All the girls show an almost choreographed grace, Tingloff is a coach devoted to coaching, and Hemingway's coltish grace is suggestive of her university track background; but, once more, the character to watch is Tory - Donnelly probably moves more beautifully than anyone you've seen, and her visible swallowing of her discomfort, whatever efforts she's making, is a wonderful piece of characterization.

The more you see of "Personal Best", the more you'll see in it; I suggest forgetting the Lesbianism and the track and field - the expectations theme will take you over in its time. So will Patrice Donnelly; and you'll wonder why no awards, not even a future career, awaited her because of her part in this film.

I liked the movie when I saw it in the early 80s because of the break through "love" scenes and the sports theme. Right now I'm listening to a late night talk show interview with Mariel Hemmingway! I was drawn to this site because I was looking for some info on Jodi Anderson who acts in the movie. I knew her because she worked out in my gym in the 1980s and also worked there. In reality the sports part could have been based on her. In 1980 when she was 22 she won both the pentathlon and the long jump in the Olympic trials for the boycotted Moscow games. She also represented the USA in the pentathlon in the 1984 LA Olympics but was injured and withdrew. Considering the fame (and money) that USA female track athletes achieved in 1984 and later, the boycott was a tragedy for her and the other athletes most of whom are relatively unknown.