Personal Best (Towne, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm
This is a 35mm presentation from the excellent Lost Reels, an organisation dedicated to showing lost, unavailable and out-of-circulation films.
Lost Reels introduction:
This rarely screened coming-of-age drama follows the tempestuous
relationship between Mariel Hemingway’s college hurdler Chris and
Patrice Donnelly’s Olympian pentathlete Tory, as they first become
lovers and then competitors during the 1980 US Olympic trials. This
tender, poetic film explores the dynamics of sporting alliances, the
rigours of training, sexual fluidity, and what it means to compete. A
clear influence on last year’s Challengers.
Chicago Reader review:
Robert Towne, the acclaimed screenwriter of Shampoo and Chinatown,
turned to directing with this 1982 drama (from his own script) about
the love affair between two female athletes (Mariel Hemingway and
Patrice Donnelly). Though the gay theme is given much greater erotic
force than in Arthur Hiller’s movie of the same year, Making Love,
it is also used as a metaphor for what Towne sees as the innate
narcissism of the athlete, the love of one’s own body as reflected in
another. The characters have a fullness and vitality rare in American
films of that period. With Scott Glenn as a flinty coach, making the most of
a part that is an actor’s dream.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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