Movie Review : Challengers (2024)
I don't miss being eighteen. It's a stressful time in a young person’s life where you have to make life-altering choices that you'll ill-equipped for. Eighteen is when so many of your dreams start to die. But I did feel like being eighteen again as I watched Luca Guadagnino's new movie Challengers, a tennis romance starring a thermonuclear Zendaya and two young actors I never seen before. Because your inner kid is always close and the biggest mistake of adults is to stop paying him attention.
Challengers tells the story of Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) two childhood friends and tennis partners who both fall in love with Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), who's athletically and romantically out of their league. But Tashi takes a liking in them and her mere presence drives them away from one another until they meet in the finals of a challengers tournament thirteen years later now that Art is a declining champion and the more talented Patrick emerges from the past.
Zendaya is a Supernova and it Really Matters
Challengers wouldn't work without Zendaya and her performance as Tashi is paramount to its potent psychosexual appeal. She basically plays two Tashis: one teenager and one adult. The former is a force of nature, driven by competitive spirit and sexual energy and the latter lives in a love-hate relationship with that young woman. She longs for her invulnerability and despises her inaccessibility. Both Art and Patrick feel the same way about Tashi, but are completely clueless about her duality.
Tashi elicits that feeling only a first love can and she does in both Art, Patrick and the audience: that feeling of being in the presence of someone exceptional, that's she's a once in a lifetime opportunity that you at least need to try your luck at. She's both paralyzing and galvanizing. I'm sure you've felt that way by looking into someone's eyes at least once in your life too. Mortals have to earn this kind of connection, but transcendent human beings like Zendaya can create it with a well-studied gaze.
What I’m talking about is best exemplified in the "conceptual threesome" scene for lack of a better word, where young Art and Patrick feel impossibly drawn to Tashi and where she reels them in by merely granting them her attention. The sexual tension is overbearing, but also life-affirming as everyone inherently understands something is going to happen. What exactly is up in the air, but you know SOMETHING is going down. This lingering desire is such a satisfying and relatable feeling.
The Part That's About Tennis
But it's a tennis movie, remember? It's also all over Challengers and not at all. Tashi claims "tennis is a relationship" while explaining her philosophy and that idea permeates all her relationships as well as Art and Patrick’s. Every exchange is a competition and each swing reflects its protagonist's personality. Tashi is powerful and assertive. Patrick is flexible, unpredictable and creative. Art is reactive and submissive and each try to survive the everlasting tension binding them together.
Although it's a tiny, weenie little bit gimmicky, I love how Luca Guadagnino underlines this idea by using all sorts of first person point of view shots, even going as far as filming from a tennis ball's point of view during one of Art and Patrick’s most important exchanges, highlighting everything is up in the air between them. Challengers has a kinetic energy to it that feels sometimes overwhelming, but that also smoothly translates to quieter scenes and charges them with that crucial sexual tension.
*
I'm not going to blow anyone's mind here by stating that Challengers is a great movie. You were probably aware of it before even reading this review, but the hype is real, folks. Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes delivered a sexy, weird, original and accessible romance drama that evokes long lost feelings of juvenile love and that also makes a great argument for them. Being eighteen is not great, but being eighteen again for two hours is awesome. It's going to win some Oscars.
