Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is both a thrilling romantic comedy and a highly appealing sports drama, anchored by a star turn by Zendaya, that confirms her status as a bonafide modern day movie star.
The two-time Emmy winner (both times for Euphoria), who also starred in various Spider-man and Dune movies, plays a tennis prodigy called Tashi Donaldson, whose career is dramatically cut short by a cruel knee injury.
Because, as she admits herself, her only talent is hitting a ball, she becomes the coach of her husband Art (Mike Faust), who goes on to win six grand slam titles, and who only needs to win the US Open to complete his career slam.
Unfortunately, his form deserts him and Tashi advises him to compete in the lowly New Rochelle challenger tournament to get his confidence back.
It’s there however, that he has to face, both on and off court, his former best friend Patrick (Josh O’Connor), a former Junior Open winner but now a down on his luck tennis pro, who also shares a romantic past with Tashi.
It turns out that all three of them still have the hots for each other, in some shape or form, even though it’s at times a very thin line between love and hate. Former doubles partners Art and Patrick always had a bromance vibe between them, while Tashi was originally attracted to both of them and only originally went with the winner of the Junior Open Final (between Patrick and Art) because, simply put, winning meant everything to her.
It’s a classic love triangle and that’s where Guadagnino’s expertise as a navigator of complicated relationships, as witnessed in masterful movies like Call Me By Your Name and I Am Love, comes in handy.
Working from an equally outstanding script by Justin Kuritzkes, he directs his three lead actors to career best performances, celebrating their wins and losses, their aces and double faults, their passing and parting shots (okay, stop it!) in the most engrossing manner and a way that feels both lived-in and real.
Yes, Challengers is a movie about three people from wealthy backgrounds and their distinctly first-world problems, but that doesn’t make their feelings any less real, nor does it stop their egos from spinning out of control in the most enjoyable way possible.
Tashi, Art and Patrick are all addicted to winning, most afraid of losing, and they ironically feel most alive when they are on the precipice of both. In the end they will have to live with what they can’t rise above - Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love is used in the background in one crucial scene - but it won’t stop them from trying.
Tashi will always regret her missed tennis career, no matter how many titles Art wins for the two of them. Art will always be afraid that Tashi doesn’t love him as much he loves her, and that she might leave him when he retires from the game. And even Patrick may at some point realize that he has run out of time to capitalize on his talent and the only way forward is to just grow the f-ck up.
Technically, Challengers has everything you can expect from a Luca Guadagnino movie. It is beautifully shot, production design and art direction are exquisite, while the movie - which includes both flashbacks and flash forwards - is also expertly edited. And yeah, the tennis scenes look very convincing too. These people know a thing or two about hitting a ball over the net.
And finally, Challengers is also the kind of movie most of us claim we want: not another franchise movie, but an original script, directed by one of the world’s best directors, and starring a proper movie star with some equally talented co-stars.
If you want to see more original movies like this, go and see it in a theater. You won’t regret it!