The leads are convincingly athletic, the characters well drawn.

| Oct 22, 2018

[Robert] Towne's direction can be frustrating - at one point Donnelly and Hemingway run up a sand dune for what seems like five minutes - but the result is 50 percent more realistic than the average sports film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 30, 2018

But "Personal Best" only jogs along sometimes: It suffers from fleshing out.

| May 30, 2018

Which horrible Eighties haircut to choose? Regardless, you'll be rewarded with some of the most startling and texturally stunning American cinema of that largely barren zone shortly thereafter to be known as the Reagan era. Score!

| May 30, 2018

Robert Towne's Personal Best is a flashy, hip and quite fascinating investigation into the arduous process of working out sexual identity in today's narcissistic society and culture.

| Apr 28, 2018

Personal Best is likable precisely because it is so unembarrassed.

| Aug 4, 2008

Towne has a love of slow motion that's employed as if he's afraid you might miss one, rippling muscle. Worse than that, when people aren't exercising, they are often talking about exercising.

| Aug 4, 2008

The sort of nerve required to produce an excellent screenplay like Chinatown seems to have deserted Towne in this, his directorial debut.

| Feb 9, 2006

This is a very physical movie, one of the healthiest and sweatiest celebrations of physical exertion I can remember.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2004

Unless you're fascinated by all of the prettified slow-motion footage of Chris, Tory and the other women athletes, your eye is likely to wander to your watch long before the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 30, 2004

One of the best movies ever about competition, with wonderfully natural performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 4, 2003

The characters have a fullness and vitality rare in American films of that period, but Towne has so much trouble establishing information visually that the film emerges as choppy, confused, ill-proportioned.

| Jan 1, 2000