Una seconda opportunità

Vanessa Redgrave's follow up project with producer Linda Yellen after Playing for Time. Here She is New York opthalmologist Richard Radley who has a sex change operation to become Renee Richards, and earns fame as a champion female tennis player. Redgrave's largeness - her height, broad shoulders, wide hips, flat chest, and large feet help in making Richard in drag look unlike a woman, and Redgrave lowers her natural speaking voice. This disparity, brave for an actress playing a male transexual, carries over after Richard becomes Rene, and although she is legally a woman and is heterosexual, her presence retains the memory of her change. The moment of Rene's first romantic kiss with a man is handled particularly delicately.

The teleplay by Stephanie Liss and Gavin Lambert, based on the autobiography by Richards with James Ames, has Richard define his predicament as "gender confusion", having "a woman inside of him raging to get out", and a "compulsive disorder", and clinically defined as a "compartmentalised psychosis". We are presented with a scenario of a strong mother and weak father, with Richard as a child dressed by his mother as a girl and being "pleased" by the attention he got, as his reasons for cross-dressing. However one doctor explans it simply - "When the spirit refuses to fit the body, why not make the body fit the spirit". Richard's path to the operation is so convulated that when it is finally done, the news is announced with little fuss. Director Anthony Page has echoed voices in flashbacks, a drag queen singing Put the Blame on Mame with a gag at the end when he uses his own deep voice, and montages of previous scenes in times of stress. He intercuts between Renee's tennis match and her trial where she sued the tennis organisers for discrimination, and makes use of the subtle music score of Brad Fiedel.

... but at the time no such controversy existed. Transgender rights would not become an issue until about 2015.

In 1986 , when this film was made, somebody being trans was still a very rare thing. I always thought the protagonist was a fictional character, and I was surprised when preparing to rewatch it to discover Renee Richards was an actual person.

Richard Radley (Vanessa Redgrave) is an opthamologist in New York City and also a very good tennis player. The film actually minimizes his tremendous athletic accomplishments. But he's also suffering from considerable gender dysphoria. He first approaches his mother - both of his parents are physicians - about his feelings. She connects him with an excellent psychiatrist. This being the 60s, transsexualism was considered insanity at the time, so he is only encouraged to "get over it" by medical professionals. This leads to lots of heartache, including RIchard marrying and fathering a son, with the wife wondering what is wrong with her when Richard grows cold towards her- she knows nothing about the gender dysphoria. The marriage fails, and ultimately Richard becomes Renee, finally taking the step of having the sex change surgery.

The public trouble begins when Renee plays in an amateur tennis tournament. A member of the press finds out the truth about her background and tells it on the air - members of the press aren't known for their compassion or discretion - and a controversy and the upending of Renee's life results.

One thing that wasn't discussed in the film is the tremendous advantage she'd have - in bone density, lung capacity, strength - having gone through puberty as a man. With there being so many trans people coming out today, many wanting to play sports, this has become a much bigger issue. In 1986 the novelty of the situation had it not being mentioned. It's almost like realizing that until the late 1970's the GOP really had no strong party position against abortion.

I'd say this is worth watching for Vanessa Redgrave's acting. She really has me convinced she is a wiry somewhat shy man up to the point of the physical transition. It's also interesting to see how the issue has evolved over 40 years.

This is a telemovie, but make no mistake about its quality. There are better production and performance values here than in many big screen Hollywood flicks.

Get it if you can! I'm lucky enough to have found an ex-rental copy many years ago.

Vanessa Redgrave delivers a performance characteristic of her extraordinary body of work - stirring, believable, assured, compelling - in fact you will wonder where the 90 minutes went as she takes you on an incredible trip through the life of an extraordinary individual.

Redgrave is totally convincing as a man, and as the movie progresses she remains totally convincing as a woman who was once a man. She clearly has enormous empathy for the difficulties faced by Richard Radley in his long and arduous quest to live the life he wants, as Renee Richards.

There are some other fine performances in this film (Louise Fletcher, however, is surprisingly stilted) but it is Vanessa Redgrave's breathtaking portrayal that makes this movie unmissable, and will make you forgive the glib, all-too-convenient telemovie-style moments of plot development, of which there are mercifully few.

I've just read a local paper bemoaning the fact that very few films or books had been made with tennis as a central theme. I was waiting for the author to mention "Second Serve" - and the fact that he didn't proves that he must not have seen this movie.

It would be fully 15 years since it was shown here on TV, but I remember how superb Vanessa Redgrave is in the lead role (true to form - she is one of my all-time favourite actors).

Since becoming an activist in the local gay community, I have come to know personally several transgenders and to appreciate even more just how honest a representation "Second Serve" makes.

Significantly it is just this month that the Olympics governing body have declared that transgenders will be included in the next Games. I believe that Renee Richards personal strength and public honesty was the first step in achieving this statement of equity.

Much after the book which inspired Second Serve came out and the film was broadcast on television, Renee Richards wrote a second autobiography in which she says that while she does not regret the transition surgery from man to woman, she does regret the notoriety that came with it. Who can say what she feels now because there certainly is a fine line between fame and notoriety.

As the film shows if it were not for a curious investigative reporter Renee would have had a modest career in amateur tennis while pursuing her real career as opthamologist.

I've met and talked with enough transgender individuals to know that what Renee formerly Robert felt was portrayed accurately enough, this is a private thing and most would like to do it privately. No one in the transgender world is groomed to be a Jackie Robinson, as Jackie Robinson himself was. It just happens. It happened in my area a few years earlier when a man who was teaching at a high school in Batavia over the summer transitioned. All kinds of noise was made about it and certainly the teacher didn't bargain for it. Curiously enough not any of her students had any problem and the hoopla has died down now.

Vanessa Redgrave did a superb job playing both the male and female versions of the character. As for Renee herself, she's probably got the quieter and gentler life now.