‘CHALLENGERS’ Volleys Passion and Obsession in Steamy Love Triangle

“You think you know what tennis is about but you don’t,” Zendaya’s tennis wunderkind Tashi Duncan scolds best friends Art and Patrick. Tennis, she says, is about a relationship. The beauty of the sport isn’t its winning – despite that being the thing that separates champions from wash-outs – it’s about the magic of two people hitting a ball with a racket in complete synchronicity. There the rest of the world falls away, leaving behind a chorus of grunts and pools of sweat, and physical artistry. So too is Challengers about tennis and a relationship. Though the relationship at the center of Luca Guadagnino’s steamy sports drama is neither a traditional doubles or singles match, as the two young men, bunkmates-turned-teammates-turned-rivals, find themselves sparring for the affections of one woman in an awkward, decades-spanning love triangle.

The script from first-time screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes starts near the end and weaves its way through the trio’s scuzzy history. Tashi and Art are married and wildly successful. He is an accomplished tennis star in a serious rut. She, his highly-respected coach and brains of the operation. Billboards plastered across the country, a collaboration with ultimate luxury car manufacturer Aston-Martin, beam their faces down onto the normies. They are larger than life quite literally and their life is opulence. It’s also scripted and dull. Codependence at its most banal.

When Tashi enrolls Art (Mike Faist) in a low-rent challengers match, about the lowest form of competition on the professional tennis circuit, as a means of boasting his confidence before the US Open, he finds himself on a crash course with his former bestie Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Patrick is a study in contract. He’s washed-up. Down on his luck. Unable to afford a night’s stay at the cheapest motel in a Nothingsville town. His hygiene is as scruffy as his discipline. Patrick is a ronin with a tennis racket, drifting towards absolution or obliteration. Kuritzkes’ script deftly navigates the interplay between professional ambition and personal desire, tracing the former friends’ intertwined paths from the end of high school through the twilight of their sporting careers and eventual face-off. Over two decades, passion and obsession, romance and competition, clash in a relentless volley that leaves no one unscathed and everyone compromised.

Guadagnino, whose previous films include Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria, and Bones and All, has done something startling with Challengers: he’s made a film that’s effortlessly fun and a complete intoxicating joy from beginning to end. Despite strong performances, rich visual style, and interesting conceptual germs, all of the Italian director’s previous films felt mired by some level of pretense. With each of his efforts, it felt that the director couldn’t get out of his own way, smothering the potential of each film beneath a drape of ostentatiousness. In Challengers, Guadagnino deploys his excessive, self-indulgent style for humorous ends, heightening the theatrics of the sport and the drama of this cursed throuple into a source of ironic hysterics and genuine delight.

He manages to find a number of ways to shoot a tennis match to find the epitome of the sport. As a dance. As poetry. As warfare. All tactics too to win and nurture Tashi’s affections. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ throbbing electro score threatens to swallow scenes up whole, and taken in harmony with Guadagnino’s operatic slow-motion shots raises the melodrama to insane and hilarious heights. Again, this movie is just so fun.

Insomuch as Challengers is a sports drama, it is also a tense relationship romance anchored by a trio of standout performances from Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor, and the balletic dance these performers put on. Zendaya is fantastic in the role, turning in her best dramatic film performance to date as the self-assured but reckless Tashi. She’s at the intersection of passion and stability, lust and love. Holding onto the leash too tightly until the levy breaks, and breaks, and breaks. Her haunted stares and emotional outbursts reveal a character who knows what she wants and what she needs are at indeterminable odds and always will be.

Patrick and Art are “Ice and Fire” before they become oil and water. Their chemistry with one another is as potent and irresistible as their respective chemistry with Tashi. Doubles partners and aspirational tennis champions, the inseparable duo find their proverbial home wrecked by a night shared with Tashi. As The Killers sang, it started out as a kiss, how did it end up like this? O’Connor’s cocky “rizz” stands in opposition to Faist’s workmanlike composure and both newcomers leave a sizable mark on the screen. Unlike some other films that jump through time, the team effectively transports the actors through their youth, not through technological wonders but through practical aspects like costumery, physicality, and personal mannerisms. But one thing remains throughout time, sharpening into a weapon: simmering jealousy and the woman who wields it like a snake-charmer.

CONCLUSION: In Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers,’ the world of competitive tennis becomes a steamy love triangle, where obsession and passion clash in a song of ice and fire. Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor are excellently matched to the material as Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ heightened score amplifies the movie’s seductive spell.