This ABC biopic of a homegrown tennis champ is a smash, with a backhanded serve of fury
goolagong ★★★★
If you were to judge this three-part drama about Australian tennis champion Evonne Goolagong on the merits of its sports scenes, you’d find plenty to fault. Tennis… well, it’s a polite thing. The atmosphere of what must be some of the greatest games on the planet is churchmouse quiet. Athletics barely rises above the level of light training.
But if you consider it as the biography of an extraordinary woman who rose from the humblest of origins to achieve the highest accolades in her chosen field (seven grand slam singles titles), it is an achievement.
Presumably for budgetary reasons, he replaces the wide shot with a close-up and the stadium with a bedroom and locker room. But in doing so, it brings us closer to the woman’s heart.
We first meet Evonne as a five-year-old child (played with unaffected charm by Eloise Hart), as she and her family move into their first home. It’s a weatherboard shack in a dirt-poor part of NSW, but at least theirs and the children are relatively safe from danger of being taken to the Mission.
Young Evonne is naturally happy with her tennis racket, having first been spotted by a coach at the local clay court. Years later, he invites trainer Vic Edwards (Marton Csokas) from Sydney to examine the young player and Edwards is impressed enough to offer to train him properly. But he will have to move to Sydney to live with him and his family. He may have escaped from Mish, but he still leaves his family.
In a way goolagong It is the story of not only its subject, but also the three men who most deeply influenced his career and life. First of all, his father, Kenny (Luke Carroll), believed in him, encouraged him and encouraged him to follow his dream. Second, Edwards, who recognized her raw talent, helped develop her, pushed her to become the best actor he could, also manipulated her, controlled her financially and emotionally, and sexually abused her (the show is understating it here, but the implication is clear). And finally, former British junior tennis player Roger Cawley (Felix Mallard), to whom she has been married since 1975.
But none of this detracts from the main portrayal: Lila McGuire as the adult Goolagong. Hers is a tremendous performance, and the woman who emerges is admirable but understatedly complex. Tough but soft, innocent but not naive, determined but not fanatic.
Proudly Native, he refuses to be the mouthpiece, preferring to let his actions on the field prove that a black man is the equal of a white man. A successful woman, she refuses to join the fight for equal pay and at one point tells a reporter that playing at Wimbledon is a great honor and that she would do it for nothing. And when Edwards threatens to sue her over unpaid commissions, she urges her husband to compromise so they can move on with their lives; when in reality the program suggests she could sue her husband for sexual abuse, embezzlement, and more.
What you are left with is a picture of a woman fighting on the field and making an indelible impression in the process. First Indigenous Australian to win a tennis grand slam, first mother to win Wimbledon in the modern era (post-1916), only woman to beat Martina Navratilova, Margaret Court and Chris Evert in grand slam finals.
This is a record worth celebrating and goolagong Does it provide justice?
goolagong premieres on Sunday, January 4 at 20:20 on ABC; all three episodes are on ABC iview.
Find out the next TV series, streaming series and movies to add to your must-watch list. Get the Watch List delivered every Thursday.
