Emma Stone and Steve Carell starrer Battle of the Sexes follows 1973's epic face-off between world no.1 women tennis player Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

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The movie also sheds light on King's homosexuality. The film has recently been premiered at Telluride Film Festival. It will open in theatres on September 22, 2017.

Battle of the Sexes
Battle of the SexesTwitter

The official synopsis of the film reads:

The electrifying 1973 tennis match between World number one Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) was billed as the BATTLE OF THE SEXES and became the most watched televised sports event of all time. The match caught the zeitgeist and sparked a global conversation on gender equality, spurring on the feminist movement. Trapped in the media glare, King and Riggs were on opposites sides of a binary argument, but off-court each was fighting more personal and complex battles. With a supportive husband urging her to fight the Establishment for equal pay, the fiercely private King was also struggling to come to terms with her own sexuality, while Riggs gambled his legacy and reputation in a bid to relive the glories of his past. Together, Billie and Bobby served up a cultural spectacle that resonated far beyond the tennis courts and animated the discussions between men and women in bedrooms and boardrooms around the world.

Here's what the critics are saying.

Variety

There's not much actual gameplay in the movie, which is probably for the best. The film runs more than two hours as it is, and it's more about the long game — King's determination to get equal rights for women players — than the fate of any one match. Even so, there is a same-sex rivalry with Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee) within the Virginia Slims Circuit that provides yet another intriguing subplot. And Alan Cumming also pops up as the league's fashion designer, Ted, who vocalizes some of the challenges facing closet gays at the time.

The Hollywood Reporter

Just about everything about this film is winning and gratifying. Groomed to resemble King pretty closely, Stone delivers a terrific performance that's convincing dramatically and physically, even if the tennis playing has been enhanced by computer-generated body doubling. Carell is goofy and funny in a plausible way for a born self-promoter and gambler now playing for his biggest stakes.

Vanity Fair

As robustly played by Emma Stone, King is capable of both humor and intensity, warmth and steeliness. Stone gets the athlete's physicality just right, square-shouldered and forward-leaning, as if always in ready position, forever in the game. It's interesting, then, watching her get so knocked off course by Marilyn, a hairdresser played by a perfectly earthy, sensual Andrea Riseborough. (Please, Hollywood, give this woman more work!)

IndieWire

Simon Beaufoy, who wrote the script before the primaries began, obviously couldn't have predicted that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee, but good writers have a way of intuiting these things (and grappling with their implications) long before they come to pass. By the time production began in April 2016, it was practically a done deal.

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