Probably the most successful one of the lot, is Alfred Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train'. While some may think this is more of a thriller than Tennis related, the sport plays a role in the film especially in a super tense scene at the US Open.
Other mild successes include the surprisingly good Match Point, the fascinating 2013 film documentary 'The Battle Of The Sexes', and a big guilty pleasure of mine, 'Wimbledon'.
Now in 2017, we have two big releases of Tennis films. That includes a film adaptation of the events of Battle Of The Sexes, which could be a possible Oscar contender.
The other, is new release 'Borg vs McEnroe' which portrays what people consider to be the greatest final in all of Tennis. As a passionate Tennis myself, I was excited to see how this would play out.
This particular match was most certainly a pivotal one for the future of the sport.
When the opening credits were being played, I had no idea that it was a Scandinavian production. What I liked about their production, was that everyone actually spoke their language. There was a lot of Swedish being said, as well as a lot of English.
As for the rest of the film, I think they did as good of a job as they could have done for a literal adaptation.
The performances were pretty solid on the whole. Sverrir Gudnason as Bjorn Borg was quite extraordinary. He looks completely identical as the great man himself. It reminded of when Ben Kingsley was cast as Ghandi, or Zachary Quinto as Spock. That role was definitely made for him.
The choice of casting Shia Labeouf was quite a bold move to play John McEnroe, and it worked rather well. While he might not look like McEnroe, his mannerisms were on point. Stellen Skarsgard as Borg's coach executed his role in this story really well. Playing Borg's girlfriend I first thought was Noomi Rapace. It was actually Tuva Novotny. Her hair style in the film certainly made me think of the famous Swedish actress. As for her performance, this supported well with Gudnason and ended up being fairly integral, especially in the first half.
I was astonished to find out that Bjorn Borg's actual son Leo played his younger self during the film.
The technical aspects were not that exceptional, but all were perfectly fine in their execution. It was shot really nice and everything looked of that time period. However, I would have liked the Tennis action to have been shot with more added drama as it felt a bit conventional.
I only have minor problems with the film, and its a bit of a catch-22 situation. It does some unnecessary over-the-top moments. Also, while it is great at being informative, it can't match in entertainment and intensity, and it's highly predictable. But as its a sports film, it sort of goes with the territory.
As they were going for a literal adaptation, I think it was always going to be tough to make this a story made for the big screen. So as for someone who already knew the story and the background of the players, I felt they presented it to a satisfactory level.
I was still interested and gripped with the story as it explored the origins of the two central characters mentality towards the game and their playing style with a good execution.
It will be interesting to see how people think of the film not knowing the result and history of this event. It would also make a great companion piece to 'Rush' as it has similar tropes to the rivalry in that film.
It was great for me personally to see another Tennis film, and we still have another one on the way in a couple of months.
Rating: 7/10
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