Personal Best
Director: Robert Towne
Writer: Robert Towne
Cast: Mariel Hemingway, Patrice Donnelly, Scott Glenn, Kenny Moore, Jim Moody, Kari G. Peyton, Jodi Anderson
Part of: identities Festival
Seen on: 13.6.2015

Plot:
Chris (Mariel Hemingway) is trying out for the 1976 Olympic track and field team and doesn’t make the cut. But she does make the acquaintance of older and more experienced athlete Tory (Patrice Donnelly) and they hit it off immediately. They not only become lovers, Tory helps Chris train and finally convinces her own trainer Terry (Scott Glenn) to take Chris on to train for the next Olympic games in 1980. But training gets to Tory and Chis’ relationship: competition is high, Terry doesn’t want Tory interfering with Chris’ training in any way and jealousy isn’t very distant either.

Personal Best has many good qualities but I couldn’t get into it: I just never really cared much about any of the characters and ultimately remained bored by all of it.

There are quite a few things the film does right. Tory’s homosexuality and Chris’ bisexuality is handled as a matter of fact and without sensationalism, which was nice. Also, the relationships within the sports team were really interesting and the various conflicting perspectives and roles they all had to deal with. Terry’s possessiveness and attempt at full control over his trainees was worrying, as the male trainer of an all female sports team even  more so. And the film really made him sufficiently creepy, which is not always the case in constellations like that.

But the film was also lacking in many regards. Above all was the camera work that was so bad, I wonder whether it was an artistic choice or what events conspired to have such bad camera work in a professionally made film. But the number of shots where heads were cut off was staggering and I really don’t see what the film is trying to say with that, if it was a choice to shoot it that way.

But weirdly cut off heads are usually not enough to ruin a film. The bigger problem was that I just didn’t care for any of the characters very much. Maybe that’s because I don’t give a fuck about sports and it was just so cental to this film. Or maybe it’s because I don’t give a fuck about competitions – another thing that was at the very center of the film.

I just remained much too distant from whatever was happening in the movie to really enjoy it. At least I really liked the ending though – I thought that it ended nicely and on a definite high note.

Summarizing: If you’re into sports, give it a try – maybe you like it better than I did.