Le choix

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

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.