“Give Me The Ball!” is a sports documentary befitting the powerhouse multi-hyphenate Billie Jean King.
Directors Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff team with ESPN’s 30 for 30 team to spotlight an athlete who changed women’s sports and women’s activism on a global scale. The film runs on King’s unfathomable energy, an 82-year-old trailblazer who has more exuberance and moxie than amateurs vying for the next Wimbledon championship. You know her story, but to have King reflect on her monumental accomplishments decades later, and inspire new generations, is the shot of adrenaline that future Billie Jean Kings need now more than ever.
From the opening sequence, where King organically chats about the WNBA’s New York Liberty during pre-interview touchups, her personality is infectious. The cameras aren’t even staged and rolling, yet King is beaming about women’s sports. It’s a full-circle moment when her fan side shows because, as the documentary hammers home, King’s never been anything but herself. Sometimes that had to be hidden from the media, but only out of necessity.
Garbus and Wolff chronicle King’s personal and professional life from childhood tournaments to current events. It’s all there. Forming an all-women tennis organization, her Battle of the Sexes against Bobby Riggs, and the lawsuit that exposed her sexual identity. But the documentary never feels like a clip show. My Sundance theater audience cheered at every set won against Riggs, as if we were in the Houston Astrodome, and broke out in thunderous applause at her achievements in equality.
The celebration vibes are sustainable and well-deserved.
King’s existence is rich with outstanding details — Elton John was nervous to meet her — and the documentary’s healthiest quality is its multifaceted nature. “Give Me The Ball!” is a layered chronicle that champions King not only as a sports icon but also as a queer icon, a mentorship icon, and much more.
Garbus and Wolff strike a meaningful balance between King’s highs and lows, keying into the struggles she faced while, as a reporter dismissively puts it, pursuing her “feminism thing.” Past footage is dredged up that highlights the rampant 1970s misogyny and chauvinism that made it to air, not even behind the scenes. Era by era, the film serves as a fascinating time capsule of the patriarchal oppression King raged against (and still does), in a gobsmackingly comedic yet revealing way.
Inspiration flows through King’s words, as she reflects with joy even on the hardships she endured. Divorce, betrayal and eating disorders — it’s all looked back on with reverence as she uses her platform to remind us that the fight is never over. “Know your history to change the future,” she poignantly states (paraphrased) when asked how to keep her work going. The film is a beautiful passing of the baton with instructions on how to dismantle institutions, as told by a living legend with a laundry list of results.
From a technical standpoint, “Give Me The Ball!” boasts impressive vision by its creators. Superb editing knows exactly where to stick King’s talking head, interjecting her quips and wisdom between pivotal matches, news appearances or press conferences. Pacing is zippy and keeps the energy vibrant, cutting in No Doubt’s “I’m Just A Girl” and Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” tracks. There’s a rollicking sense of entertainment that never feels like an information dump. ESPN’s 30 for 30 series has always been clever about its coverage in this way, so that’s not surprising, but compliments are still due to Garbus and Wolff.
“Give Me The Ball!” rises to the occasion of immortalizing a magnificent human who was destined for greatness. It’s an ode to perseverance and refusing to be told you can’t succeed. The world is full of obstacles, and it’s our job to break them down. King’s altruisms are the spark that keeps flames of protest and change ablaze. This is one of those documentaries that wins over non-doc watchers, thanks to King.
When your subject exudes confidence and oozes charisma, that sure helps. But even so, “Give Me The Ball!” grants intimate access to Billie Jean King in a way that only further endears her to the public eye.
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