Challengers, 2024.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino.
Starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, A.J. Lister, Nada Despotovich, Naheem Garcia, Alex Bancila, Hailey Gates, and Jake Jensen.

SYNOPSIS:

Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach is married to a champion on a losing streak. Her strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.

Sports-themed narratives tend to culminate in a big matchup with an accolade or some form of personal and professional redemption involved, and while it would be accurate to say that director Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers builds to something similar, the entire film is ambitiously structured around such a match. Of course, the formatting of tennis (sets and match points) fittingly lends itself to such a format, with each set telling its own part of the film’s story while allowing for flashbacks continuously reshaping what viewers know about these characters and why they are playing each other.

Challengers is a psychosexual relationship drama that is, simply put, on-edge absorbing, leaving one sucked in for 2+ hours and questioning aspects of the narrative, eagerly guessing and anticipating the blanks being filled in. With that said, it’s a disservice to talk about the plot, especially since so much of the film’s intensely draining success comes from form and structure, seamlessly transitioning between past years and a 2019 low-level tournament matchup between Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) playing for a confidence boost and to increase their player ranking, respectively,  essentially vying for a shot in the more prestigious, nationally covered tournament.

Initially, it comes across as a standard matchup between the two, with Art on a losing streak and his wife/coach Tashi (Zendaya) choosing the tournaments and opponents. Meanwhile, Patrick has his card declined for a cheap motel room and sleeps in his car before the game. What starts as a matchup seemingly just about the sport and competition quickly and gradually is stripped and redressed throughout flashbacks into a bitter, personal rivalry where some of these people can’t stand looking at each other, let alone talking to each other

13 years ago, Art and Patrick were childhood best friends in the equivalent of Beavis and Butthead if they were charismatically horny 18-year-olds (considering one of them is blonde and the other is dark-haired, the only thing that’s missing are the band T-shirts) but talented at something. They found themselves practically drooling over Tashi, a prodigy college tennis player with the skill to become famous, make her family rich, and start a foundational charity. Their obsession also came down to polar opposite reasons; one became romantically infatuated, the other more of an open relationship type, lusting after, well, the beauty of Zendaya. As much as it is about this friendship falling apart and fighting over her affection, Challengers is also very much about the internal feelings Tashi has about those perceptions and what she wants from her life and these men across the years.

To call the dynamics between each character relationship thorny would still be an understatement, as Challengers piles layers on top of itself. Even when the flashbacks reach the pivotal career-ending injury for Tashi, her character and performance from Zendaya don’t lose a domineering edge. She is still in control, if not more so than when she was younger, slyly slipping her face away from a three-way make-out session, leaving Art and Patrick kissing each other. It is a slightly frustrating creative choice to sideline Tashi from the action on the court, although a more conventional film would turn the film and character into something supportive and sappy. Luca Guadagnino (working from a dense, rich screenplay from Justin Kuritzkes) doubles down on intricate power dynamics, scorching sexual tension, and the subtle, endlessly tantalizing psychological mind-bend of what these characters ultimately want from each other and what the endgame is for each of their actions.

It’s a no-brainer that the tennis sequences would be livened up through the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but it is also pleasantly surprising and immensely effective that the dialogue also feels supercharged by these upbeat tempo swings, pulsating thumps, and scratchy sounds. There is a scene between Art and Patrick in a sauna, naturally drenched in sweat, but the score accomplishes that same feeling for the viewer. Not to break out the old cliché, but the score becomes a character, driving and adding context to a war of words between these characters and their shifting alignments.

If the seamless transitions between past and 2019, tight pacing, and kinetic depiction of tennis weren’t enough, Challengers also features an insane climactic shot following one of those balls in real time as it whacked around and upside down, similar to us watching this thorny, arguably toxic love triangle. It’s an impossible film to digest in one viewing, character-driven with some seriously dazzling style. If Tashi views the art of tennis as a relationship, perhaps Luca Guadagnino feels the same about cinema. This recent sizzling streak he is on proves him to be a modern-day great at his craft.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com