Challengers

I just got out of Luca Guadagnino's movie Challengers and raced home to start writing this. This is one of the most exciting, enthralling, and engaging films I've seen in a long time. The previews for this movie made it out to be "the Zendaya threesome tennis movie", which was enough to get my attention, but oh my god it's so much more. It's about relationships and power dynamics and competition and ambition.

The movie stars Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist, and Zendaya as Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson, and Tashi Duncan. In 2006, close friends Patrick and Art have just graduated from a tennis academy and won the junior doubles competition at the US Open. At a party, they meet Tashi, an incredibly talented young tennis player whose star is rising. They're both attracted to her and invite her to their hotel room. She stops by and they all make out (yes, everyone has a turn kissing everyone), but before things go further, Tashi gets up tells them that whichever boy wins the match they're playing against each other the next day will get her phone number. They try to get her to reveal which one of them she actually wants to win and she says "I just want to watch some great fucking tennis."

Challengers moves back and forth in time, so you know that Tashi wound up marrying Art and they have a child together...despite having dated Patrick in college (he's the one who got her number). In 2019, Art is a professional tennis player and Tashi, having suffered a knee injury in college and never fully recovered, is his coach. Art is on a losing streak and his confidence is failing. Tashi signs him up for a Challenger event so that he can regain his confidence by beating players way less experienced/talented than he is. However, Patrick, who also had a career as a professional player but is now down on his luck and reduced to sleeping in his car, signs up as a wildcard in the same Challenger...and GUESS WHICH GUYS END UP PLAYING EACH OTHER IN THE FINAL MATCH!?!

As the movie bounces back and forth (much like a tennis ball) between the past and the present, we see the power dynamics shift constantly between the characters. While Tashi is the definition of an Alpha Female, Art and Patrick are never truly hapless victims. They thrive on competition, both on the court and in the bedroom. What amazes me is that despite the lies, mind games, and adultery that occur in Challengers, there always seems to be a feeling of sportsmanship between the characters. While it gets close to cruelty at some points (a conversation between Tashi and Art in bed the night before he plays Patrick in the Challenger is especially difficult to watch) it never really feels like anyone is kicked while they're down. Even Art, who would likely be called a "simp" or a "beta" or a "cuck" by the young folks these days doesn't really seem all that pathetic. Partially because he's a truly talented athlete and partially because Patrick, despite having more "alpha" swagger, is living a much more pathetic life at the time of the Challenger match. And while both men drool and compete over Tashi, they manage to hold their own as best they can. Tashi really is like a goddess in this movie and we're all (Patrick, Art, and the viewers) just living in her world. 

Challengers is about the power of desire. Hot, sweaty, stomach-churning desire. The kind of desire that makes you weep in frustration while never feeling more alive. No director is better at capturing authentic portrayals of desire than Luca Guadagnino. He blew me away with Call Me By Your Name, which was just so honest and sensual and heart-breaking. Challengers comes pretty close to giving me the same feelings I got from CMBYN. This beautiful mix of flirtation, sexuality, intelligence, power dynamics, and humor. And it couldn't have been pulled off with lesser talent. The complexity O'Connor, Faist, and Zendaya have to bring to this film to make it work is extraordinary. The balance they all need to strike to get the tone perfectly right is a tight-rope walk. If Tashi's character were any meaner or any less mean, it would all fall apart. If the two guys were either more aggressive or more pathetic, the movie would feel icky and sad. But they all hit their emotional marks with pinpoint accuracy, making Challengers fun and sexy as hell. This is cinema, baby!

Grade: A+

PS: the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is AWESOME.