Review: Personal Best

Young hurdler Chris (Mariel Hemingway) fails in her bid to qualify for the 1976 Olympic Team, but a new and exciting (sexual) relationship with more seasoned pentathlete Tory (Patrice Donnelly) helps make up for it. Tory even manages to convince her hard-arse coach (Scott Glenn) to take on the rather green Chris. Tory sees a star in Chris and takes her under her wing, but Glenn is awfully slow to come around on her supposed talents. However, once things draw closer to the next Olympic trials (the infamous 1980 event in Moscow), and both Chris (who really starts to find her stride as a pentathlete now) and Tory (who seems to be waning) seem to be going in opposite directions whilst training to qualify in the same event, their personal relationship begins to sour. Chris even moves out of the apartment they shared and begins a relationship with a male water polo player (Kenny Moore). ‘Win at all costs’ coach Glenn notices this growing tension between them, and tries to put a distance between the two, before it starts to completely derail their athletic opportunities. He also starts to suspect that Tory might be trying to sabotage Chris’ chances out of competitiveness or jealousy. Larry Pennell and Luana Anders appear briefly as Chris’ parents.

Every heterosexual guy out there knows that there’s a number of movies that we all owe it to ourselves to see in our lifetime. Y’know, ones with chicks making out and all. Admit it, guys, we’ve all got the list in our heads. “The Hunger”, “Bound”, “Desert Hearts”, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”, “Vampyros Lesbos”, “Erotic Ghost Story”, and “The Devil’s Nightmare” to name but a few. This 1982 directorial debut for veteran screenwriter Robert Towne (writer of “Chinatown” and “The Last Detail”) is one of the most famous lesbian movies of all-time. Ask Ross Geller, he knows what I’m talking about. As for me, this one was surprisingly one of the last for me to cross off on my list. The bugger just doesn’t get played on TV in Australia much, and I never found it on VHS back in the day, either (Yes, I’m a pervert...What’s your point?). Now that I’ve seen it? It’s a solid film, and extremely well-cast, but actually, it’s not the film I was expecting at all.

There’s kind of a love scene and lots of full-frontal nudity, but it’s actually not all that sexy. More disappointingly for me, it isn’t much of a romance/relationship movie, either. That’s not what Towne is interested in here, and whilst I enjoyed most of the film for what it was, there seemed to be a lack of heart, of emotional investment. I was expecting this to be more of a lesbian romance involving athletes, but instead Towne has given us a film about athletes who have a relationship of ambiguous definition and at least one of the characters has ambiguous intentions. The relationship is there to serve the true interest Towne has in athletes, how they operate, and ultimately it serves more of a plot function than anything else. That’s interesting, and indeed Towne creates a very realistic (at least to someone out of the loop as I am) view of athletes and their world, etc. It works on that level, as I found myself engaged in the world. I guess that’s largely what Towne was aiming for, but there seemed to me to be a lot left out of the story and relationships. The way the two women seemed to drift apart seemed to be too choppy and indistinct, and happened way too early. I felt like we hadn’t even gotten a clear understanding of whether they really were lovers, friends with benefits, or something else entirely. So when the film ended, I was like...um, what? There’s practically no resolution to the central relationship, I honestly couldn’t believe it. I think that if the film focussed more on the romance it would’ve been a much stronger film because by the time we get to the competitive/break-up/possible sabotage aspect of the film, the emotional resonance and investment from the audience would’ve been greater. So I think Towne has done himself, the characters, and us a disservice there.

Maybe the passage of time has rendered this film less than it once was perceived as for audiences of the time who craved Sapphic themes on screen and had as yet to see very many representations of such things. Or maybe the film just plain doesn’t deliver on that level. Even the film’s one big love scene is a bit of a disappointment, and not just for perverted reasons. Who thought it would be sexy to throw in a ‘pull my finger’ joke into a lesbian love scene? That’s just a fucking cruel joke on heterosexual males everywhere (and to be honest, anyone else looking for emotional investment. Love scenes, explicit or not, really do help in that regard, so I’m not just being a perve). I think from what I’ve read about Towne, he tends to shy away from conventional stuff, but I don’t want to see any woman, gay or otherwise doing a  ‘pull my finger’ gag in a film. That’s just disgusting and unladylike.

The one character that Towne does write interestingly, albeit with not much depth, is the character played by Kenny Moore (who was actually an Olympic marathon runner, not an actor). More often than not in these films about lesbians/bisexuals, when a man is introduced to come between two women, they come across as either a clueless fuddy-duddy, or an outright homophobe (Which is stupid. What possible problem could any self-respecting male have with two fine sexy ladies loving one another? That just boggles my perverted mind). Moore comes across as refreshingly relaxed, good natured, and reasoned. I liked that, because I felt it was more true to life instead of a humourless, homophobe caricature, which would’ve been the easy route. So that was one break from convention I did enjoy. I also really liked as I said, the realism and atmosphere Towne captured here, you can tell the guy did his research beforehand. It all seemed authentic, and it’s a very well-directed, shot, and edited film. The way Towne and cinematographer Michael Chapman (“The Last Detail”, “Raging Bull”, “The Fugitive”) shoot the athletes, focusing on their limbs and muscles isn’t just athletic porn, it serves a real storytelling function in that we learn a bit about what it takes to do what these women do. It’s a love letter of sorts to athletes and their talents and dedication. Towne isn’t just ogling their bodies for titillation (unless he’s got a muscle fetish?), though there’s plenty of nudity in the film. But the nudity is mostly casual stuff, these women are comfortable with their bodies and comfortable being naked around one another.

It’s also, as I said earlier, a very well-cast film. The performances are all good, but I was particularly impressed by Patrice Donnelly. Firstly because she’s not an actress, she’s the real deal, a former No. 4 hurdler in the world (and apparently openly bisexual, though now married and with a kid). She may be a bit rough around the edges, but she’s utterly convincing in a frankly not very clearly defined role. In fact, you’d never know she wasn’t an actress, because there’s nothing that sticks out like a sore thumb, so you just accept her and move on. But the way Towne sets her character up, you’re never sure if she’s genuinely in love with Hemingway, or using her for a competitive edge, or maybe a combination of both. This is especially the case in the latter stages of the film where the two women are kept apart, and you never really get any sense of closure to whatever the hell was going on between them, one way or the other. You also aren’t sure if Donnelly deliberately injures Hemingway or not, which makes you less sympathetic towards one of the central characters, which really hurts the film if you ask me. But that’s Towne’s fault, absolutely not Donnelly’s fault.

Mariel Hemingway (pre implants here) only ever gave one kind of performance in the 80s and 90s, that of the naive, slightly gawky, sweet-natured girl. It’s a performance that served her well as Dorothy Stratten in “Star 80” and it’s perfectly suited to her role here. If there’s any emotional investment in this film and the characters, it’s due to Hemingway, who makes her awkward, perhaps confused and inexperienced character one to care about, even if the central relationship is a bit of a fizzer. We essentially watch her character come of age before our eyes, and Hemingway is perfectly chosen for that. Scott Glenn’s cold, no-nonsense style of acting makes him a hard guy to cast, but he’s spot-on here as the hardened, ruthless coach who doesn’t care who his athletes sleep with so long as it doesn’t affect their performance one bit. It’s not a very likeable characterisation, but it’s an effective one.

So overall, this film interested me in its atmosphere, it’s editing and cinematography, and featured top performances. It did not, however, work for me in regards to its central relationship and romance because Towne had a certain agenda in mind that was counteractive to any emotionally engaging romantic or sexual relationship. It’s a solid film for what it is, but dated and not the film it could’ve been. Still, it’s one of those films every guy has to see at some point in their life, just be prepared for a letdown on the sex/romance front. It’s not that kind of film.

Rating: B-