Le choix

I'am a Vanessa Redgrave fan. However, that does not mean that every performance she gives and every film she makes will be "Oscar" worthy in my eyes. This film DESERVED every Emmy it was nominated for (3) and deserved the 2 wins. However, Redgrave was cheated out of her Emmy. I have never seen a woman pass so greatly as a man before. Redgrave is wonderful! She even got down the movements of a man! There are times you can tell it's her. But if you don't know her, you can't. She looks like a man 100% of the time and only when she turns slightly do you get a glimpse of the real person.

The movie is wonderful. It's brilliant. Redgrave is brilliant! You see her struggle time after time with her identity and you feel for this character. She really jumps into character. She even fights like a man! If you can get your hands on this, get it! It is wonderful!

Ms. Redgrave is no less than stunning as Richard. This is so much the case that when she finally won her hard-fought battle to become Renee, I was worried that she'd have a hard time passing as female. Her performance really grabbed me that much. The supporting cast is also very professional, and they wisely defer to Redgrave's presence in every scene. This film walks the line between the clinical and the emotional better than any other I have seen on the subject including the recent TransAmerica. There can be no greater fighting for the dignity of one's soul than when the world insists that your apparent gender is true but you are certain it is a lie and that you really can never life your own life until you correct that lie.

Mine is not so much a review but a rebuttal of the negative reviews here. One reviewer thinks that taking female hormones change a male voice to a female one and eliminates a beard. This is completely untrue. The voice has to be retrained and the beard removed via electrolysis. This is hard to do and takes a long and painful time to complete. Many have said that Renee Richards had an unfair advantage when competing against cis-women. This is a falsehood. The female hormones that Richards would have taken would have significantly reduced the muscle mass and strength from that when she was a man. The only advantage she would have had, perhaps and only perhaps, was that gained from being a man and the superior sports hand eye coordination and technique that would entail. Having said that, Raskin wasn't that great a player as a man in that environment. Others have said a man changing sex will never be a true woman. But he will never again be a true man. So that then creates a voluntary inter-sex, the eunuch. This position has existed since the dawn of human history and therefore should be treated with the utmost respect and admiration for it is a brave and committed path. Transsexuals hurt no-one and give much love back, when allowed to do so.

"Second Serve" is a stunning made for TV movie done at a time when TV films seemed to have a little more thought put into them than they do now. In later years, they have descended into true crime and women in crisis, drawing largely from the headlines. This film is drawn from the headlines, too, but a different kind. It's the story of Richard Radley, who becomes Renee Richards. Back in 1986, these stories were uncommon - there were no MSNBC documentaries on sex changes, no true stories shown on The Learning Channel. Renee Richards, of course, is a tremendously accomplished woman, an ophthalmologist and tennis pro, who gains a great deal of publicity by suing the tennis association for discrimination.

I found this to be a very uplifting story of a brave person who fought for what she believed in so that she and others like her could have a better life. Vanessa Redgrave is perfect in the role - tall and big-boned, she has an androgeny that she can turn on when a role calls for it, and of course, she is a great actress. I saw her several years ago in "Long Day's Journey into Night" and was blown away, as I was when I saw her in this 19 years ago. If you get a chance to see this, it's beautifully done.

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.