Synopsis
Young sprinter Chris Cahill is having difficulty reaching her potential as an athlete, until she meets established track star Tory Skinner. As Tory and her coach help Chris with her training, the two women form friendship that evolves into a romantic relationship. Their intimacy, however, becomes complicated when Chris' improvement causes them to be competitors for the Olympic team.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Mariel HemingwayChris Cahill
- Scott GlennTerry Tingloff
- Patrice DonnellyTory Skinner
- Kenny MooreDenny Stites
- Jim MoodyRoscoe Travis
- Kari G. PeytonPenny Brill
- Jodi AndersonNadia "Pooch" Anderson
- Maren SeidlerTanya
- Martha WatsonSheila
- Emily DoleMaureen
Recommandations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
What distinguishes Personal Best is that it creates specific characters--flesh-and-blood people with interesting personalities, people I cared about. “Personal Best” also seems knowledgeable about its two subjects, which are the weather of these women's hearts, and the world of Olympic sports competition. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
PERSONAL BEST offers a detailed, believable insider's portrait of the world of track and field. This very different sports film isn't for everyone, but patient viewers should find many small pleasures in it. - 70
Variety
Personal Best offers audiences a lot to like in solid characterizations, plus some shock that is a Robert Towne trademark. What they probably won't share, however, is his tedious fascination with physical perfection. - 70
Time
Neither slick nor glib, they all suit a film that may finally disarm everyone with its full-frontal naturalness, its unsmirking bawdiness, its obvious liking for athletes as people, and its refusal (most of the time) to poeticize sport. Personal Best is likable precisely because it is so unembarrassed. - 63
The Associated Press
The leads are convincingly athletic, the characters well drawn. Where director-writer Robert Towne stumbles is in his portrayal of the ritual of athletics. [4 Feb 1982] - 60
The New York Times
It's also full of lyrical slow-motion footage of women athletes' training - jogging, sprinting, running the high hurdles, throwing the shot, broad jumping and high jumping. These sequences are accompanied by not-great pop music that has been poured over the images in a way that suggests fudge sauce on top of fried chicken. - 60
Washington Post
What lends the movie authenticity is that most of the people in it really are Olympic athletes and record-holders, and they show that they know what they're doing. The second lead, Patrice Donnelly, is a former Olympic hurdler. - 50
Chicago Reader
The characters have a fullness and vitality rare in American films of that period, but Towne has so much trouble establishing information visually that the film emerges as choppy, confused, ill-proportioned.
