Robert Towne’s directorial debut Personal Best is a beautiful, rambling, thrilling, poetic concoction of a film. Variously described as a queer love story, sports drama, and coming-of-age film, it’s all these things and more. It’s also a film loaded with contradictions and controversy.

Personal Best tells the story of college hurdler, Chris (Mariel Hemmingway) who after failing to qualify in the 1976 Olympic trials enters a relationship with the more experienced pentathlete Tory (Patrice Donnelly). They become lovers, Tory persuades her bullying coach Tingloff (Scott Glenn) to train Chris, and Tingloff changes her event to pentathlon. Chris and Tory’s relationship begins to flounder and at the film’s climax the two women compete against each other to qualify for the 1980 US Olympic pentathlon team.

This tender, poetic film explores the dynamics of sporting alliances, the rigours of training, sexual fluidity, and what it means to compete. A clear influence on last year’s Challengers, Personal Best is presented in conjunction with the BFI and will screen from an original 35mm print.