Italian director Luca Guadagnino is well known for his sensual depictions of complex romantic relationships and has brought his distinctive brand of emotional messiness to the tennis court for his latest feature. Challengers revolves around player-turned-mentor Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) who, after being forced to retire early through injury, now coaches her husband Art (Mike Faist) on the circuit. Following a string of confidence-knocking defeats, she enters him into a lower-tier tournament to get his career back on track. Tensions run high when he is drawn against his old friend and doubles partner Patrick (Josh O’Connor), and the film then takes us back in time to explore the chequered history between the three main characters.
Using the sports movie template as a metaphor of sorts, tennis serves as the vehicle which channels the desire, pain, obsession, rage and resentment of Tashi, Art, and Patrick. Interestingly, the sharp script is penned by debutant screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, husband of filmmaker Celine Song who crafted her own contemporary love triangle tale with Past Lives just last year.
A present-day grudge match between the two men acts as a clever framing device for the story structure; while stakes feel relatively low in the beginning, the chapters of their lives are filled in by various flashbacks and the intensity of their rivalry soon reaches fever pitch. Throbbing electronic beats from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross amplify the narrative drive of the film in a way that feels utterly intrusive initially and quite subversive of the genre, almost drowning out some of the dialogue in places. By the sweat-drenched final act, the score pulses to a stimulating climax in which Guadagnino goes wild with visual flourishes like a crazed painter applying finishing brushstrokes to his abstract masterpiece.
Bang in the middle of the racquet-wielding competitors at courtside throughout is Tashi, and this is symbolic of her positioning in all aspects of the film – they look up to her so much that she might as well be in the umpire’s chair. Idolised and objectified to a degree by both Art and Patrick, she’s at the heart of their motivations and manipulations. Crucially, she’s completely self-aware and can control this power to her advantage; her presence is confidently portrayed by Zendaya in her most daring screen turn to date. As he often does, the director playfully inverts the male gaze of his lens and does so with a ravenous examination of the testosterone on display. Poster-boys for hot-boy-summer, O’Connor and Faist have understood the assignment with their excellent performances, fleshing out the heightened sexual energy from the script, homoerotic or otherwise.
A compelling rally of lust, love, and lobs, director Luca Guadagnino finds a cinematic sweetspot with Challengers and with a central trio of performers that more than rise to the occasion, he serves up a deafening, definitive ace.
Cinema Perspective 