TIFF 2017: ‘Borg/McEnroe’ rivalry movie officially kicks off festival

A tale of real-life rivalry on the tennis court kicked off the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday in a scaled-back line-up of movies that focus on tales of survival amid chaos.

Borg/McEnroe stars Shia LaBeouf as fiery US tennis star John McEnroe and Sverrir Gudnason as cool Swedish champion Björn Borg, whose epic matches in the 1980s set the world of tennis alight.

“Their rivalry had something universal that transcended the sport,” director Janus Metz told a news conference. “It had deep existential questions about how two people could drive themselves above and beyond.”

“It’s never about the sport, it’s always about the characters that can drive the drama. That’s what BORG/MCENROE is.” — Janus Metz, director pic.twitter.com/4HD78w6GDq

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 7, 2017

“Our story is really a prism when a specific incident happened in time and what brought about a certain shattering of the sport.”—Janus Metz pic.twitter.com/o6hBhxIEAI

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 7, 2017

LaBeouf, 31, in his first big movie since a string of arrests for drunken or disorderly behaviour in the past three years, acknowledged that he shared some of McEnroe’s hot-headed personality.

“Acting is like athletics – …read more