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| Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O'Connor in "Challengers" Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com |
When it comes to tennis, it’s hard to imagine there’s anything else for the spectator, other than just sitting in the stands simply watching a ball go back and forth on the court. However, there’s a little more to it than that. With tennis, you’re watching a game of constant movement as the players hustle from front to back and side to side as they chase the ball to get another swing at it. To be in that environment, the energy and tension is fun to experience.
Director Luca Guadagnino captures all of that and much more in his romantic sports drama, “Challengers.” With a trio of spark-inducing leads, a complex and emotional narrative, and some exciting technical work, we have the latest sports movie that can appeal to both fans of the game and everyday moviegoers.
Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) is a talented tennis player who retires early after a knee injury. Now, her tennis-playing husband Art (Mike Faist), is staging a comeback, with the help of her coaching. As he makes his way through a series of matches to the final face-off, he realizes he’ll have to go up against his former best friend, Patrick (Josh O’Connor), who also happens to be Tashi’s former boyfriend.
Zendaya gives an electric performance as a tennis star who exudes a competitive persona. She exhibits unshakable fierceness when she’s on the court, showing the audience how committed she is to her game and won’t let anything stand in her way to greatness. In the scenes that show the dramatic side to her character, we see someone where it’s obvious that tennis has become the core of who she is, someone who expresses her romanticized view of the game when she first meets Art and Patrick. When it comes to those two characters, Zendaya has great chemistry with them. Whether she’s working with one or both of them in a scene, Zendaya shows an attitude that shakes up the screen as Tashi maneuvers through the affections and eventual relationships of her suitors.
I can’t get into deep detail about the performances of Faist and O’Connor without going into spoilers with their character arcs, but I’ll say that they have terrific competitive energy as two players who are pitted against each other. Whenever they share the screen, you can see the evolution of what was once a great friendship that has now turned into something very damaged. As the film goes on, you can sense the strain getting tighter and tighter around their bond as their athletic kinship slowly starts taking a backseat to fierce animosity when their mutual love for Tashi corrodes the connection that they’ve built.
The screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes utilizes a non-linear narrative as an intriguing method to let us know the history behind these characters. The way in which this story goes back and forth through time gives it the feeling of a tennis match as your attention is pulled between different moments of these characters’ lives. This keeps us immersed throughout the film as we watch certain scenes play out, and then go back in time to see why such things happened the way they did. This adds a depth to the frame story of the game between Art and Patrick, with Tashi sitting with the spectators and acting as the audience surrogate as she and the viewers watch the two former friends and analyze where it all went wrong. The narrative offers plenty of time to set up the dramatic stakes, having us get to know the three characters who are involved in the love triangle, as well as how the relationships, both platonic and romantic, are created and dismantled as we get closer to the big match.
One of the strong points of the screenplay is how Kuritzkes uses many small details that appear and then return later on. Not only do the multiple appearances of these details add layers to the narrative on a thematic level, but they also show how times have changed the characters. These details take on bigger meanings when they pop up again, encouraging you to compare the first time and second time that they appear and what they all stand for in the greater scope of the story.
The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom provides standout camerawork that adds to the tension both inside and outside of the tennis sequences. He provides some excellent long takes, be they dramatically tense encounters or scenes on the court. These scenes allow for the fullest emotion of the characters to unfold as their situations become more and more complicated, and the audience will watch a scene evolve from one thing into something else entirely. One of the most memorable instances of Mukdeeprom’s cinematography comes near the end of the final match between Art and Patrick, when the camera shifts to the POV of the tennis ball as it continues to get hit across the court. In a scene that’s already overflowing with energy, this brings some extra visual flair to the sequence as the match reaches a boiling point.
The editing by Marco Costa transitions between timelines with an abundance of ease. Costa juggles several time periods in such a way that doesn’t lose the audience, but instead keeps us invested in the layers that are constantly being pulled back as we’re brought further into the past events that lead up to the frame story.
The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as usual, comes loaded with a techno vibrancy that gets your blood pumping as you watch the tennis matches and the confrontations between the main characters. Just like with the camerawork and editing, their music makes sure that the tension doesn’t abate when we’re off the tennis court, but continues as the trio of characters sorts through the difficulties that their relationships face when their competitiveness spirals out of control.
This is a movie that comes with an equal amount of drama and laughs. Just as the editing does well with its switches between timelines, Guadagnino has an expert dexterity when going between the humor and emotion, the seriousness and witty awkwardness. It’s a whirlwind of tones that Guadagnino is able to keep under control as he brings us through the increasing chaos of the personal and professional lives of the three main characters. Even though this is a romantic drama at heart, Guadagnino certainly knows how to mix in some great sports action that will absorb the viewers into the game, staging it with a fine eye for movement that’ll make your heart race as the aggressiveness of the players grows with each serve.
For “Challengers,” Guadagnino has assembled a talented group that presents us a movie that’s about more than tennis. He combines the abilities of the writer, actors, and technical crew to give us a romance-based sports film where you feel the weight of everything that’s being said and done to the characters. Once the movie is over, you’ll see there isn’t anything that’s not left on the court.
Grade: A
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