Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Grand Slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challe...
Just like the sport it bases its entire erotically charged narrative experience on, “Challengers” reaps the benefits of playing the long game to the enjoyment of many and the dismay of some. It’s one of those movies where whether you love or hate how badly it teases you, you just simply can’t get enough of it.
Versatility is the one trait every director has to practice on a constant basis for future references and you can bet Luca has definitely fixated on cracking down on a certain rhythm. While Luca Guadagnino’s direction in Bones and All mixed delicate sensitivity with gratifying imagery, here, he mixes that audaciousness with what might as well be the mental prowess of a Machiavellian 3D chess. Despite his opinion on tennis being a boring sport, he makes it look so damn good to watch.
So much of how the film looks isn’t all that visually arresting but that’s by design; everything looks cold, restrictive, enclosed in a protective bubble despite the crisp exteriors they display. Between the strategic lighting and presentation, each location captures both a unsteady ambience and the complex kaleidoscopic emotional turmoil with our characters and depending on what the scene has to portray, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s tenacity between loose cannon touch and articulate sharpness sends lightning bolts across every frame of every scene at every second, almost like the camerawork itself is playing offense while the editing plays defense but both are in tandem with each other.
Costumes are kept simple but effective, the film is done at a uneven but tight pace whose rather frantic momentum often wrangles itself out of and back into submission and it builds tension well despite the inevitable predictability that comes in certain scenes. Even the musical score resembling a bouncing underground nightclub has this entrancing allure to it that remains enticing but foreboding; Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s concoction is so integral to the mood of this experience, it might as well be another protagonist in its own right.
Chemistry between our main ensemble feels fervently authentic and genuine, only bolstered by the terrific acting chops by everyone involved. Mike Faist and Josh O’Conner are steadfastly competitive both in character and out as they deliver standout performances but Zendaya right here? Watching her go full, unapologetic Lady Macbeth while towering over everyone and everything? They don’t stand a chance against Ms. Zendaya Coleman.
Stable instability is the name of the game for this story and Guadagnino casually throwing us viewers onto the centre court of a passionate but messy love triangle sounds like your cliched recipe for disaster……but then the flashbacks begin and the pieces begin falling into place.
Like the interlaced titanium-enforced meshwork of a tennis racket, Justin Kuritzkes’ script is every bit as hyperactive as it is cynical, the complete polar opposite to his wife Celine Song’s work with 'Past Lives’ last year: using a nonlinear style to deftly volley past its own messy narrative structure that requires and rewards attention, giving audiences ample time to follow. If anything, the constant jumping back and forth in time becoming more erratic as the tension ratchets up purposefully leads to a different climax but a meaningful progression of foreplay as well. Two stories are being told here that blend and blur each others lines so eloquently, the story’s substance actively grows more confident alongside its spiraling style.
Normally the term ‘Competition breeds Excellence’ is seen as a near-universal positive that helps us recognize how much we achieved or must improve to reach satisfactory growth but the dark stinky underbelly of that dose of competition is how easily it warps our emotions, ideals, and serves. This movie doubles down on those intricate power dynamics through A LOT of scorching pyschosexual tension but does so in a way that mirrors the sport at the center of its narrative: fierce, kinetic, competitive…..but also intimate while diving into the highs and lows of the athletic lifestyle AND subtly interrogating what arrested development looks like in those unwilling to protect, take care of, or address the emotional vulnerability one experiences. It’s not all that big into going fully in depth on the emotional consequences of these toxic, sexually charged relationships but it knows better than to spell it out for us. To be honest, I’m actually impressed how well this story makes the very prospect of both tennis….AND LOVE actually terrifying.
From focus and emotional control to strategic acumen and mental resilience, tennis demands a complex blend of psychological attributes and they are integral to every game. Luca and Justin understand how the mental often outweighs the physical much more than Reinaldo Marcus Green did for “King Richard” but the story, through these thoroughly detestable three, opens up a perspective on the inherent push-and-pull of relationships beyond metaphysical or psychological boundaries so sexy but inherently unhealthy, that it all but slams the brakes on our supposed wants and desires and causes us to rethink that. Love for a person, a sport, food, idea, belief, country, it doesn’t matter; if left to fester, love can turn you into a slave, a brainless fanatic and God only knows the lengths you’re willing to go to keep that.
The only real negative spot I can pick out is by the time we get to the third act, the slow motion excessiveness did start to wear on me. Plus, the frame-rate when those certain scenes happen are either very crisp or very blurry and choppy and there’s barely a consistency between them but that’s experimentation for you.
