Movie review: “Challengers”

“Challengers” is a type of movie that raises the question to audiences: is all fair in love and war? While watching the film, viewers are left wondering who to even route for as everyone seems to be playing their own personal game to better themselves through lies, deception, and betrayal.  

“Challengers” is a sports/romance movie released in 2024 and is around 2 hours long. The film stars Zendaya who plays Tashi Donaldson, Mike Faist who plays Art Donaldson, and Josh O’Connor who plays Patrick Zweig.  

The movie is centered around three characters who are all young tennis prodigies. In the beginning, it highlights the different paths the characters go on and how that ultimately affects their future. The movie cuts through the present and the past, weaving the storyline to different points which is reflected in the final tennis match of the movie.  

Art and Patrick are best friends who have known each other since boarding school. When they meet Tashi at a match, they both instantly seem to like her. Tashi tells them that she will date whoever wins the match that Art and Patrick compete in the next day, already illuminating her competitive spirit. Patrick wins the match and he and Tashi start to date, Art and Tashi end up going to college together at Stanford while Patrick decides to start his professional tennis career. 

At college, Tashi is injured and she and Patrick break up. Tashi is unable to be as good as she once was at tennis, so she stops playing and starts to coach other players, vicariously playing the game through them. She looks for the best person to coach, and after some convincing, she takes on Art as they start to date. 

Through this timeline, the movie continues to cut back to years later, where Art and Patrick are playing a final match against one another, and Tashi watches from the middle of the stands.  

In the past, after college, Art and Tashi get married, but they continue to run into Patrick, who Art hasn’t spoken to in years. While Art and Tashi become a power couple in tennis and are rich and successful, Patrick’s career is slowly failing, and he sleeps out of his car.  

As they continue to meet, the tension rises between the three, and Tashi goes between them still trying to decide after all those years who really is the best player. When it cuts back to the present, the ultimate question for the movie is who does Tashi love? Art, Patrick, or the game itself. 

The movie intricately weaves through the relationship between the characters and shows the complexity of human emotions and what they will do to succeed. While the dialogue in the movie is good, it’s the subtle but momentous expressions of the actors that make the movie so interesting. Zendaya is the star of the movie, bringing to life a complicated female character that is not often seen, especially in a romance movie. The director, Luca Guadgnino brought the world of tennis and pure competitiveness to life, and “Challengers” is a must-watch movie.