Personal Best (1982)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Blistering performances.

Although it has been many years since I saw this film it stands out as being an excellent film, both in the content-human relationships & competition, as well as the cinematography.Mariel Hemingway is simply stunning. Indeed the Women's High Jump is among the best events to watch at any Track & Field meet-as the girls are generally young, long & lean.If you follow T & F some of the high jumpers are able to compete at the highest level for over a decade. (I think that 5 of the top 8 of the 1988 Seoul Olympics had also made the final of the 1976 Olympics).There were two good films that I know of that had aim as 80 Olympics-Golden Girl with Susan Anton & this film. So how long did the USSR stay in Afganistan after the 1980 Olympic boycott? 13 years. So if a politician says a sporting team should boycott another country because of civil rights etc-then remind them of this Olympics, which in turn stuffed up the next Olympics as well as a couple of Commonwealth Games especially for African countries.Irony Idi Amin pulled Uganda out of the 1976 Olympics because New Zealand played rugby in South Africa.Even in 2004 the Aust govt was sort of trying to stop the Aust Cricket team from touring Zimbabwe.Enough of politics as I was not really aware of politics when I saw Personal Best in the early 1980's. I was aware of my attraction to girls and in Mariel there is one of the most beautiful as well as the capacity to admire athletic bodies , male & female, both on the track and in the locker room.

Personal Best is a gripping film about competition and pushing oneself to the absolute limit - what you leave behind in the process and what you build. Mariel Hemingway's character Chris is blessed with natural talent but initially lacks the drive and motivation that has taken her soon-to-be lover Tori to a higher level in women's track and field. When Chris begins training with Tori and Tori's coach takes her under his wing, Chris moves to the next level.As Chris' and Tori's romantic relationship begins and then evolves, the competition between them intensifies. Chris' coach Scott Glen remarks to Chris, "I don't know which scares you more, beating Tori Skinner or losing to her." Her quandary culminates at the Olympic Trials where Chris and Tori compete for 2 of the 3 spots on the US Women's Pentathalon Team. And the result is unpredictable yet makes perfect sense - and it was even more meaningful given that the competition was for spots non an Olympic team that wasn't going anywhere, as the Moscow Olypics would take place without the US athletes.

First, the good. This is one of the more accurate behind-the-scenes looks at competitive Olympic athletes ever captured. Towne must have had some experience or exposure in this realm because the downtime interactions are right on. Towne is also pretty good at the motivational games between coach and athlete in the initially manipulative but ultimately more real relationship between Glenn and Hemingway. A third strength is the non-judgmental and almost casual way Towne treats the lesbian relationship between competing runners. Considering this is the first major release I'm aware of ever tackling this somewhat daring subject, his restraint and matter-of-factness in treating same sex romance no differently than the more traditional approach is ahead of the curve. Towne is almost clinical in his approach, which is kind of amazing given the probable studio pressures to be more racy about it.Still, this documentary style is both a strength and a weakness. While it prevents the film from becoming overly patronizing or sensationalized, it also keeps things a little chilly and distant. The viewer doesn't dislike these characters and wants to root for them, but somehow we never quite connect. Considering Towne is particularly known for his complex stories and characters (CHINATOWN, THE LAST DETAIL, script doctor punch-ups on a dozen other famous films), this is a strangely flat landscape peopled with rather bland individuals.Overall, Personal Best is a slow and finally disappointing study of professional "amateurs" coming of age both athletically and sexually. The characters in this story are credibly portrayed but despite their orientation they are all a little tentative and vanilla-headed. It's almost like Towne decided to be so cautious in not tabloidizing the cheeky elements that he forgot to insert enough dramatic elements and heart to make this a compelling tale. Reportedly Towne is pretty proud of this movie, which is hard to understand compared to his other works, but then as Billy Wilder once said, "A parent is frequently fondest of the child with the lazy-eye." It is an interesting failure.

"Personal Best" opens with a beautiful shot: a lone spot of sweat on the cement as the camera pans slowly upwards to Mariel Hemingway's tense profile as she prepares for a race. Soon afterward, however, the actress opens her mouth and out comes this little girl voice with a puny range. It's only natural to think this is going to be a tough role for Hemingway to pull off, but I believe she has done it. Gay-themed dramas are always something of a risk for the actors involved, yet Hemingway takes her sprinting character from naive mouse to sexy girlfriend to adult in the course of "Personal Best" and becomes a better, stronger actress in the process. Although an excessively barbed film with two gratuitous sub-plots (both involving men: a manipulative coach and an eleventh-hour boyfriend for Mariel), the picture has great '70s atmosphere, good race scenes, some funny, raunchy humor, and an even-handed, focused look at two women in love (lesbian lover Patrice Donnelly is a very moody cuss, but that's certainly no reason to drag in the boyfriend, which is where the movie starts hedging its bets). Two-hours-plus of Mariel Hemingway may sound like too much, but she's very good here; she carries most of this film on her shoulders and pulls off some very tricky sequences. This was her own 'personal best'. **1/2 from ****