In 1980, Swede Bjorn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) was the world's hottest tennis star, having won five French Open and four consecutive Wimbledon singles titles. But standing in the way of his fifth then came rising American star John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf), who was everything the reserved and stoic Borg wasn't: brash and confrontational. Seemingly born rivals, these two players had never faced each other... until the 1980 Wimbledon championships.
Borg vs. McEnroe recreates this most definitive and timely of sporting rivalries in such a way that it is thoroughly suspenseful and entertaining even for a non-tennis fan like me. Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen, working from Ronnie Sandahl's sharp screenplay, marries the sporting action (which is flawlessly edited and shot) with a firm grip on the interpersonal stories unfolding here, which cover both men's upbringings and training, their love lives and their gradual off-court friendship. He also coaxes solid performances from his two leads: Gudnason, in the less showy role, is well-balanced and layered and LaBeouf evokes not only the same fury in all of McEnroe's infamous on-court tantrums but the congenital drive and persistence that sparked them.
But best of all, when the film turns its focus to how these two managed to forge a lifelong friendship, its sweetness is sincere but never cloying. That's because the filmmakers, I think, recognised the common obsessions and goals Borg and McEnroe had: sporting glory, and fame. Plus, the director being Danish, rather than Swedish or American, surely helped him to be objective in telling this story. But regardless, everybody involved told it very well.
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