Movie Review: Challengers

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is a great film because of how effortlessly it blends what could have been two separate films together to make one great film. This is a love story and sports film, reminiscent of Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham. One film is a love triangle about two friends, one girl, and the ideas of past loves and what could have been. The other is a sports film about the competitive spirit. If these were separate films starring the principal cast of Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor, I feel both films would have been good. But these films have been sewn together and the result is a sultry, sexy, intense film and one of the best of the year so far.

Challengers opens at a U.S. Open qualifying match in New Rochelle, New York. The match is between Art Donaldson (Faist), one of the most celebrated tennis players in the world who is contemplating retirement, and Patrick Zweig (O’Connor), a brash, messy man who hasn’t seen the success Art has. Sitting courtside is Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya), a former tennis prodigy before she got hurt and is now Art’s wife and coach.

The film cuts back and forth between Art and Patrick’s match and events of the past. Through flashbacks, we learn about the messiness of the relationships with this threesome. Art and Patrick used to be best friends growing up and they both fell for Tashi hard. We see key events in their lives like how they met, Tashi’s relationship with Patrick, Tashi’s career-ending injury, and her relationship with Art, whom she is married to during the match. As we learn more about their lives and relationships, the tennis match becomes more intense and fascinating as there is more at stake than just a spot in the U.S. Open.

The love triangle at the center of the film succeeds because of the film’s three leads. Zendaya gives the best performance of her young career embodying the physicality and intensity of a world-class tennis player while also being able to flip switches and show us a smart, calculated businesswoman still looking to keep her competitive juices flowing. Zendaya is as bright of a star as it gets in Hollywood, and she has never shined brighter than she does here. Faist and O’Connor are equally great as the two men competing for Tashi’s heart. The two could not be more opposite in their demeanor and their tennis game. Art is calculated, smooth, and thoughtful while Patrick is brash and unorthodox. The two conflicting personalities vying for Tashi’s heart is captivating to watch and Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor have infectious chemistry. Whether it’s a scene with all three of them in a humid hotel room or just two of them talking in a hotel lobby, you feel every emotion the characters are feeling, from lust and passion to pain and anger, and the characters feel authentic and lived in.

Luca Guadagnino directing a love triangle love story seems on brand for him as a director seeing as he’s made forbidden love and twisted love stories before in Call Me by Your Name and Bones and All. But his making a great sports movie caught me by surprise. This is a sports movie about being a competitor and the different variations of expressing your competitive nature. Art’s competitive flame is dying down, while Tashi’s still burns strong despite not being able to play herself, and Patrick was never able to harness his without the help of Tashi. Challengers looks at what you are willing to sacrifice to be great and stay great, how complicated that can be, and the tough choices those competitors must make.

The tennis sequences in the film are exciting, well-executed, and arguably the best I’ve ever seen in a movie. Shot masterfully by frequent Guadagnino collaborator Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and coupled with outstanding sound design and a pulsating score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Guadagnino shows us the pain, energy, and toughness of these players during a match by utilizing a lot of slow motion and sweat-glazed close-ups of our players. The film’s final moments are some of the best sequences from any sports movie in the last decade. They are full of emotion and passion and perfectly combine everything we have just watched. It had my heart racing, and my palms sweating, and made me want to get up out of my seat and cheer. Challengers is a spectacular sports movie, an enthralling love story, and an overall superb film.

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