I never miss a chance to rewatch Personal Best. The themes are as universal today as they ever were, and for a lesbian movie I am still awed by how progressive this one was.
It’s easy to relate to Chris (Mariel Hemingway) and her reluctance to put her personal ambitions above those of the people she cares about. First it is her father, then Tory, then Terry her manipulative coach. By the end of the film she somehow manages to untangle the web of who really deserves her loyalty and affection and acts on it.
Mariel Hemingway does an excellent job at portraying inner conflict, that desire to succeed weighed against the need to feel loved, and to love in return.
Too many lesbian relationships in film and TV get casually swept aside, as if their pain doesn’t count simply because they’re gay. Not only is it important that gay cinema show lesbians falling in love, we also need to see them realistically breaking up and falling out of love.
As bisexual actress Patrice Donnelly said in the Advocate in 1998:
There were lesbians in movies before, but this was the first time that being lesbian didn’t look like a disease. Personal Best showed us as good, wholesome, clean human beings who pursue excellence. It showed being a lesbian is not about deviance but about love.
That’s why Personal Best never really grows old for me.
