Challengers’ skin shimmers. Sweat flows from entwined tongues. Dicks hang loose. A spat is a spit. in the faces.
Luca Guadagnino enjoys being intimately involved. His works, Call Me By Your Name (juicy peach eroticism), Bones and All (gorgeous finger-munching cannibalism), and Suspiria (well, everything) have been a blessing to us lately. However, Challengers is a very tactile piece of art even by the director’s standards. Its cameras observe and exalt the human body, its power, allure, and frailties; nonetheless, it is utterly physical in every way, with racquets smashing to bits, tennis balls bashed, and bones broken. The most damaging of all, though, are the vicious arguments that continue from the bedroom onto the court, further shattering already damaged relationships. There is violence in the tennis. It’s delicious to be hateful. There is a lot to the movie.
As they simultaneously chase rising star Tashi (Zendaya), best buddies Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist) become shabby young upstarts. Their groins can hardly withstand it when she promises her phone number to whoever wins the next round. Their libidos piqued, the boys start competing off-court as well, bringing with it all the obsession, jealously, spite, and resentment that rips apart their friendship. Through Darwinian one-upmanship, broken allegiances, raging vendettas, and gladiatorial tennis, Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes present a vicious treatise on uncompromising desire, exploring just what we sacrifice when we commit to getting what — or who — we want. This early romantic entanglement affects the threesome’s every second thereafter.
Challengers is a masterfully constructed piece of precision craftsmanship.
As the time-traveling movie repeatedly jumps back to a bitter rivalry that dates back ten years, Patrick and Art smash tennis balls at each other’s heads. Patrick, played by O’Connor, is a confident and independent player who is limited by his own conceit. He has a brilliant smile that belies his few failures due to his charisma. Faist’s Art is a more virtuous, upright, and perceptive athlete who is a little bit unlucky but incredibly committed. In addition, Zendaya provides a performance of subtle force as the unwaveringly motivated Tashi, demonstrating to us her true abilities. She delivers Kuritzkes’ vicious taunts without mercy and uses withering stares to deadly effect—if appearances can kill, then she is a mass murderer.
In fact, there are moments when Guadagnino forgoes words in favor of letting these three remarkable faces speak for themselves. Slow motion is used to give these ordinarily ephemeral moments grandeur and an intimate, almost intrusive sense. The intense techno-club soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, on the other hand, amplifies everything and highlights the intense rush of tensions, emotions, and competing goals. As a result, even scenes of these people moving through hallways have a mythological quality.
Challengers is a masterfully constructed piece of precise art without the use of sport for the sake of sport. You’re engaging in a game of percentage tennis. At one point, Patrick tells Art, “Waiting for me to fuck up,” without at all referring to the game. This is crucial since nothing on or off the grass is different from what is happening. All of them are constantly heated. Despite having a lot of tennis, this doesn’t feel like a sports film. Each ball bounce has a story behind it. The knife twists more with each line. Each scene has energy. Every hit of the racquet and serve is like a smack in the face as emotions and history are acted out with every edit. Every second designed to keep the mind tricking you. The film explores the cost of it all, what we may become along the road, and what it’s like to simultaneously love and loathe someone through the eyes of its three gluttons for punishment protagonists. It takes pleasure in acrimony.
Guadagnino is genuinely naughty throughout. Make no mistake, this is jovial, mischievous cinema, yet the stakes feel like life or death, building to an adrenaline-fueled conclusion that will make you forget you’re breathing. It is a pulsating ode to the excitement of expectation, victory, sacrifice, treachery, regret, and failure. The thrill of it all, the whole darn thing. It pulsates.