I’m far from a sports person, though as a writer, I find them to be a useful source for metaphors, usually about life and overcoming struggles. Clearly, so does Luca Guadagnino, as we see with Challengers, which uses competitive tennis as a compelling, if at times heavy handed, metaphor for relationship dynamics, desire and sexual politics.
Tashi Duncan (Zendaya, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune) is a retired tennis phenom who is now a determined coach known for her dominating presence both on and off the court. Tashi’s husband, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist, West Side Story), a championship player, seems to have lost both his edge and his love of the game. Tashi hopes to help Art get his groove back by having him compete. However, this plan takes an unexpected turn when Art must compete against his fallen-from-grace former best friend, Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor, God’s Own Country, The Crown) who also happens to be Tashi’s ex-boyfriend. The story of the complicated past between these three plays out in flashbacks as the tense tennis match progresses, as the alternately playful and fierce back and forth of the games of life, love and loyalty bring into into question what it really means to win.
Challengers is easily the most mainstream film that Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All) has made to date, and it showcases many of his greatest strengths and most glaring weaknesses as a filmmaker. It’s beautifully shot and brimming over with style, though sometimes the latter element is to the film’s detriment. While the tennis matches are skillfully and creatively staged with a lot of brilliantly innovative camera work, including a dazzling shot following the ball itself back and forth through the air, there’s a maddening over dependence on slow motion throughout the film, whether it’s an endless parade of lingering shots of beads of sweat dripping down off of the players or pointless sequences of characters simply walking from room to room. This tedious and rather pedestrian indulgence makes the movie run too long by a full 15 to 20 minutes, and I found myself checking my watch more times during than Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer and Dune combined. The thumping, abrasive score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network, The Power of the Dog) is so self consciously cool that it becomes ridiculous , and it’s hard to be particularly excited by one overpowering techno theme played approximately 800 times with no discernible changes regardless of the situation. It’s not underscoring, it’s overscoring, and love it or hate it, you have to lay this choice firmly on Guadagnino. The character relationships at the heart of the film and are much more nuanced, and it’s most successful when focusing on that dynamic. Art and Patrick both fall hard for Tashi, and she finds herself coming between them, describing herself as a “homewrecker.” Tashi professes to loathe the idea of causing friction between them, but finds herself not only drawn to both of them but intrigued and excited by the power that she has over them. The screenplay by playwright and novelist Justin Kuritzkes (The Sensuality Party) is sly, and full of pithy dialogue exchanges, though the tendency to clumsily telegraph big moments betrays his background in the often too literal and spoon-fed storytelling style of the stage.
Zendaya is obviously the big draw here, and she exudes intelligence, power and sexuality in the role of Tashi. Zendaya’s performance is quite strong, though I find her to be much more convincing in the flashback sequences as the college age version of the character. Tashi’s self absorption and obsession with winning could have made her far more off putting if played by a lesser actress, and Zendaya’s undeniable appeal is critical to making the film work. Faist is terrific as Art, by far the most likable and interesting of the three characters, and his sincerity and authenticity kept me engaged by making me care about Art, even when I found myself growing apathetic toward the overall story. O’Connor is quite impressive as Patrick, a charmingly roguish and almost unbearably arrogant man child who embodies the stereotypical strutting jock who draws people to him like a magnet despite few redeemable qualities. O’Connor gives him charisma, though it’s largely up to the other two actors make us care about him simply because they do.
Challengers is smarter than average as a piece of fluff entertainment, though it’s almost insultingly predictable and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, falling short when measured by loftier artistic standards. It could have benefited greatly from judicious editing and a greater emphasis on subtlety. It scores enough points to be called a winner, and it’s got style to spare, but it lacks the heart of a true champion. –Patrick Gibbs
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1 of 5 | Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt star in “The Fall Guy.” Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
LOS ANGELES, April 30 (UPI) — The chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt powers The Fall Guy, in theaters Friday, despite a shaky script. Whenever they’re not on screen it becomes apparent the film is nothing without them, but they are in it enough to keep it fun.
Colt Seavers (Gosling) is stuntman to Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). When Tom insists on a second take of a stunt, Colt sustains a back injury and quits the stunt business.
18 months later, producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asks Colt to come back for the directorial debut of Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Colt hasn’t called Jody since the accident, so their reunion is not smooth.
The ’80s TV series was about a stuntman turned bounty hunter, which makes sense for weekly adventures. The movie is more determined to showcase the profession of stunt coordinators and performers.
Director David Leitch was a stuntman and his production company, 87 North Productions, is the elite in the industry. So it’s okay if the plot of The Fall Guy movie is a little thin to justify having fun with its homage, but then it should get to the fun more quickly.
Gail actually called Colt to find Tom, who has disappeared, without the studio finding out. The more charming story is the tale of a stuntman and director falling back in love.
The scenes between Colt and Jody are the strongest of the film, whether Jody is using a sci-fi movie’s plot to blatantly address their relationship or whether they are fighting in a case of mistaken identity. The film spends too much time on the Tom plot when it should be about Colt and Jody.
Since The Fall Guy is a comedy, the action outside the movie set leads to more jokes than danger. The film plays Colt as a goofball, not a cool action hero, for which Gosling is totally game.
Colt does use his stunt powers while investigating Tom’s disappearance. Since he knows how to get hit by a car and survive, Colt will literally stand in the way of an escaping suspect.
Colt can use a staircase as a ramp to launch a vehicle during a car chase. The film’s climax on the movie set incorporates the stunt and pyrotechnic departments too.
It was a mistake to Intercut a good chase with a scene of Gail and Jody in a bar, thus ruining the energy of the action scene. But other moments, like Colt and Jody discussing the use of split screen while actually performing on split screens, are impressive.
Colt has almost as much chemistry with stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) as he has with Jody. Dan helps Colt investigate the Tom mystery while they quote action movies to each other.
The fake titles of Tom’s movies sound believable, except they are apparently all originals and not based on pre-existing intellectual property such as The Fall Guy itself. The script rightfully calls out the fact that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still refuses to add a category for a stunt Oscar.
The Fall Guy shows audiences how productions now scan actors and their stunt people so they can put the actors’ faces on footage of their stuntmen performing dangerous feats. So it’s a little disingenuous when the film purports to show closeups of Gosling in action when it explicitly showed how modern movies can fake that.
A behind-the-scenes montage during the end credits does show Gosling’s double doing some of the major stunts from the film, and a few where it was actually Gosling being pulled on wires.
So, given that the mystery of Tom’s disappearance is slight and, without spoiling, only becomes more convoluted, it really should have been relegated to a background subplot. But, The Fall Guy doesn’t take itself as seriously as other movies with even more convoluted plots, so it amounts to more fun than not.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
The Idea of You, 2024.
Directed by Michael Showalter.
Starring Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, Mathilda Gianopoulos, Meg Millidge, Cheech Manohar, Raymond Cham Jr., Jaiden Anthony, Vik White, Dakota Adan, Roxy Rivera, Graham Norton, Grace Junot, and Jon Levine.
SYNOPSIS:
Solène, a 40-year-old single mom, begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet.
There is no denying that The Idea of You, a romantic drama in which the meet-cute involves a 40-year-old divorced mom and artist unknowingly stumbling into a 24-year-old global celebrity pop star’s trailer under the assumption it’s a bathroom while taking her 16-year-old daughter and her friends to Coachella, is ridiculous. However, co-writer/director Michael Showalter’s film is also a reminder that it doesn’t necessarily matter how improbable a romance is so long as the screenplay does something compelling with the dynamic and would-be lovers.
Admittedly, it takes a while to get to that point since the film is based on what feels more like someone’s fantasy than a novel (Michael Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt adapting the work of Robinne Lee), but once the film confronts the reality of how difficult such an unlikely relationship would be, not to mention how judgmental and nasty society and Internet culture can be, the screenplay from Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt leans further into a more human, grounded side of these characters that Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine convey with gripping emotion. This also means that the second half sometimes feels like it’s rushing through its thornier, more adult, and engaging material, but there is just enough tackling every subject a film with this premise probably should, barring an unnecessary, hokey epilogue that reverts to something far-fetched.
Even setting those frustrations aside, it is admirable that Michael Showalter is comfortable embracing a romantic comedy formula, aware and confident that such tropes are less irksome when the endeavor is injected with characterization. Once the story goes in a serious direction, moving on from the will-they/won’t-they part of the attraction, one practically forgets the absurdity of how these characters were brought together. That is a true, telltale sign that something is working here. It all leads to several moments of piercing emotion between two people harboring trust issues, trying to make this relationship work.
Solène (Anne Hathaway) sees all the reasons she should try resisting superstar boy band singer Hayes’s (Nicholas Galitzine) charm; he is much younger, and she has a teenage daughter (Ella Rubin) who listens to their music (although Hayes is not her crush). The world, including the ex-husband (Reid Scott) who cheated on and left her, will judge the nature of the relationship.
Is it awkward when the father drops by to pick up his daughter with a much younger man answering the door shirtless? Sure. It’s also amusing. It’s also harmless, but when the gender roles are reversed, this age gap is generally an acceptable celebrity dating lifestyle. Leonardo DiCaprio seems determined never to be caught dead dating someone older than 25, Chris Evans just married a woman in her 20s, and Billie Eilish previously dated a man in his 30s. Even movies rarely touch on the reverse of this age gap, perhaps for several reasons, but I won’t dive into those hypotheticals.
What it does come down to is that people, especially men on the Internet, will always look for reasons to attack and hurl insults at women, as if that happiness threatens them. There is a moment where Solène takes charge, determined to make the relationship work despite that. We desperately hope they are successful, completely ready to be heartbroken if it doesn’t pan out.
For whatever reason, the film sidelines the teenage daughter at a summer camp, actively avoiding this intriguing trauma in favor of watching Solène accompany Hayes on his European tour (smartly aware that music and concerts are not the main attraction of this story) filled with bonding and sex (unfortunately, the PG-13 style despite an R rating, leaving one wishing the direction went for something more steamy and sensual. This section drags on, although there are noteworthy scenes showcasing how much more mature Solène is than these younger men (obviously), as well as how sincere Hayes is with his commitment.
If it seems this review mostly only discusses the second half of The Idea of You, this is mostly a straightforward, corny rom-com until the ideas take hold. As such, it takes a while to get invested properly, but damn do Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine make a great on-screen pairing, age and social class gap be damned. The movie morphs from fantasy into something believably messy and real right before one’s eyes.
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
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