Movies: 'Borg vs. McEnroe'

[+ WilliamM]

Comment: Interesting Idea. But, I wonder how many people care, and have written McEnroe off as good broadcaster, but otherwise an ass. I sat next to the TV booth once at the U.S. Open in New York; he is an ass,

 

Movies New York Times

Review: ‘Borg vs. McEnroe’ Revisits an Epic Court Battle

Borg vs McEnroe

By A.O. SCOTTAPRIL 11, 2018

 

 

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One swears, the other doesn’t: Shia LaBeouf, left, and Sverrir Gudnason in “Borg vs. McEnroe.” Credit Neon

A movie that recreates a real-life sporting event is a curious phenomenon, potentially undermined by the sources of its own appeal. If you remember the Big Game in question, then you walk into the theater with a spoiler in your pocket. But if you don’t, you might not care much in the first place. And besides, the internet being what it is and the made-for-cable sports documentaries being what they are (which is generally pretty good), you might be less than thrilled at the prospect of watching actors impersonate world-class athletes.

 

On the other hand, in the face of such odds, it’s hard to root against “Borg vs. McEnroe,” an engaging feature-length response to the trivia question “Who won the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1980?” The answer is one of the two players named in the film’s title, rivals whose contrasting styles and temperaments made their confrontation especially exciting.

 

 

Bjorn Borg, a taciturn Swede with a two-fisted backhand and steady baseline game, had won Wimbledon four times. At 24, he had already secured a place among the sport’s greats. John McEnroe, a volatile, quick-footed American with a peppery serve-and-volley style, would eventually join those ranks, too. At the time, though, he was a 21-year-old brat, as famous for his on-court tantrums as for his drop shots.

 

As McEnroe, Shia LaBeouf pulls off a remarkable feat of underacting. (No, that is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.) The eruptions happen, but they are byproducts of a temperament defined more by insecurity than by aggression. We see more seething than storming, and we are aware of watching a young person in the unruly process of emergence (a description that could apply to both the character and the actor).

 

Enroe is immature and impulsive and not especially nice, but for all his theatrics — the press loves to cover his outbursts — he is not the dramatic center of the movie. That is Borg, played by Sverrir Gudnason (and by Leo Borg, Bjorn’s son, and Marcus Mossberg in flashbacks to his early life) as a man whose apparent calm is purchased at an enormous, potentially tragic price.

 

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Mr. Gudnason as Bjorn Borg. Credit Neon

The filmmakers — Janus Metz directed, from a screenplay by Ronnie Sandahl — focus on the melancholy Swede, perhaps out of Scandinavian pride and perhaps because they believe his still waters run deep. Though “Borg vs. McEnroe” visits the childhoods of both players, it spends more time following Borg’s path. A working-class boy trying to break into the genteel world of Swedish tennis, he was kicked out of a club for bad sportsmanship and prone to exactly the kind of racket-throwing, foul-mouthed displays that would bring McEnroe, a rich kid from Long Island, such notoriety.

 

 

McEnroe recognizes this hidden kinship, noting that the grown-up Borg is not an iceberg but a volcano. Borg’s ability to suppress any emotion and to play with ruthless, machine-like discipline is the result of his relationship with his trainer, Lennart Bergelin (Stellan Skarsgard, playing a variation on his “Good Will Hunting”

). Bergelin discovers the young prodigy and pushes him toward greatness, but by the summer of 1980 the pressure is starting to take its toll. Borg’s relationship with his fiancée, Mariana Simionescu (Tuva Novotny), is strained, and his mental health seems to be precarious.

 

And so, after a few excursions into high-style period kitsch — a visit to a disco, vintage haircuts and track suits, glimpses of Vitas Gerulaitis (Robert Emms) and Jimmy Connors (Tom Datnow) — we settle in for the big match, wondering whose composure will crack. The game is remarkably exciting to watch, a sign (like the climactic contest between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King reconstructed in “Battle of the Sexes”) that movies may at last be ready for tennis. That seems to be a result of advances in digital editing and image-making that allow the actors to be inserted seamlessly into the action.

 

You’re still always aware of the artifice, which is part of the fun. Nothing too grand or grave is at stake here. No special cultural or historical importance can be derived from the Borg-McEnroe battle, but sports don’t always carry that kind of significance. “Borg vs. McEnroe” is a modest, tactful movie about two guys who, at their peak, were neither.

[Nvr2Thick]

LaBeouf as McEnroe is most certainly inspired casting.

[+ WilliamM]

I sat next to the TV booth some years ago. Patrick McEnroe was playing Boris Becker at the U.S. Open. John McEnroe was one of several announcers.

 

His children was still quite young; they were free to run around in the TV booth. J. McEnroe might pay attention occasionally during commercial, might not. Perhaps John thought it was better than leaving them with Tatum O'Neal, their mom. The other poor people in the booth obviously disagree.