SOURCE: "Personal Best: What's New in Towne," in The Village Voice, Vol. XXVII, No. 11, March 16, 1982, pp. 52-3.

In the following review, Stone discusses Towne's treatment of women's sports and lesbian sex in Personal Best, contending that "the themes are entwined in a startlingly innovative way."

Nervous sweat drips off Mariel Hemingway's face as she sets up for a sprint in Personal Best, and real life bursts through decades of movie convention. We've seen sport as background to romance in the charming caprice, Pat and Mike. We've seen the athlete as manipulated beauty: Susan Anton in Golden Girl. But we've never before seen the beauty as jock foremost; and, amazingly, the woman's commitment isn't presented as some dazzling exception or aberrant piece of sublimation. Writer-director Robert Towne doesn't explain it at all. It's simply a given.

Women's sports are treated with an altogether new seriousness in Personal Best, and...