If you ever wanted to experience the point-of-view of a tennis ball in the middle of a match, Luca Guadagnino has you covered! Jokes aside, his latest film Challengers is easily his most stylish and visually exciting film to date, working alongside his frequent collaborators, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and editor Marco Costa, to create this rhythm that evokes the feeling of watching a tennis match, even in scenes that take place outside the court. It’s a film about back-and-forths, push-and-pull, the way people have to read each other from a distance to react on their potential next move, about the way competition can make its way into your own life and how sex can factor into that competitive desire.
The story itself is told non-linearly, bouncing from past to present like the tennis ball being passed from one side of time to another. We follow three characters – two lifelong friends and tennis players Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and their connection to a fellow tennis player, who has received quite a bit of acclaim, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). The three hit it off, but as complications arise, the two friends drift apart and Art and Tashi become a bit of a power couple many years later. It’s now been 13 years, and Patrick happens to enter a tournament that Art is participating in, which results in some drama that I won’t get into too much detail about.
Obviously, there’s a lot I left out, but that’s because the nature of the film is all about relishing in the different ways these three characters bounce off one another, and how they are manipulated, more often than not by Tashi, who loves to be in control, playing things to her tune and her tune alone. Art is more passive and willing to do whatever to make her happy, while Patrick is more brash, bold, very take-charge, but inconsistent and unreliable. And the film still finds ways to flip some of these dynamics on their head. To say these personalities clash in ways that are delightfully messy and chaotic would be putting it lightly, and the experience of watching it all unfold is all the more fun because of it.
The film is being heavily marketed as this sexy drama, and like with a number of Guadagnino films, it’s less “sexy” and more about sex, and the way we use sex, and in some cases, weaponize it. That’s not to say the film doesn’t have that primal appeal, we are dealing with a very attractive cast here, but it’s not this erotic film that you might think it is. It’s more like one of those mid-budget adult dramas we used to get quite often in mainstream Hollywood before, the “kinds of movies they don’t make anymore.”
But that leads me to my big critique of the film. I want to start by saying the cast does a fantastic job, everyone is really good in the film, the roles are meaty, and they are eating it up. However, this being the kind of film that it is, evoking the kind of film we used to get before, it is missing one big thing that those films would have – movie stars. This film is sorely missing movie star energy, and as a result, you have these performances that are – like I said – very good, but lack that individual, idiosyncratic vigor. Imagine the kind of stars who would’ve been in this had this been made in the mid-90s. Zendaya is the only one who comes close, I think she is on the precipice of having that specific “it” factor, but I think she still needs time. It also doesn’t help that she and her co-stars still seem a bit too baby-faced. If it weren’t for the change in hair styles, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the different time periods. Some moments do have that weird “kids playing dress-up” effect, and again, it’s not about the performances, it’s purely about screen presence.
Despite that one drawback, I still immensely enjoyed Challengers. It’s a supremely entertaining drama that uses sports and competition as a metaphor for relationships. But the actual sports stuff is really thrilling to watch, especially when we get into the final match. The script is written by Justin Kuritzkes, who is probably most well known for one of the OG viral YouTube videos called “Potion Seller,” and interestingly enough, husband to Past Lives director Celine Song, which is now only making me think of the husband character from that movie. Sorry. Terrible tangent. The script is structurally very fascinating and the fact it’s able to work as cohesively as it does while juggling the various characters without constantly spelling things out is really astonishing. And of course, the film itself is very well made, Luca Guadagnino has a way of really giving a very tactile quality to his images, making you feel like you can sense the textures, the smells, and the sounds as if you were right there with the characters. Plus, you have an absolute banger of a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score that goes so hard, every time the electronic tunes came in, I was riled up. It was truly such a fun time, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Challengers is now out in theaters.