Review of Personal Best (1982) by Amanda C — 06 Jul 2011

This is an interesting little film. Robert Towne produces some interesting direction. It's nice to see the female body treated as that of an athlete as opposed to being fetishized as it usually is when the female body is on display. Here there are a great deal of shots focusing on their muscles and the moving, working body which is fantastic.

Towne doesn't throw anything in the viewers face. Even though the initial central relationship of the film is a lesbian one, he always treats it as nothing more than it is. It's not sensational or overly dramatic, it's matter of fact and real, the exploration of a relationship that just happens to be between two women. This is Personal Best's strength, placing it far before its time as even now this kind of straight forward and normalizing of same sex relationships is still not particularly common in the media.