A backwater tennis court, a “challenger” tennis tournament, in Rochelle, New York. Mike Faist (West Side Story; The Bikeriders) as Art and Josh O’Connor (La Chimera; Cinderella) as Patrick are battling on this small-town court. Zendaya’s (Dune Part Two; The Greatest Showman) eyes fill the frame, watching them, and us. How did it come to this?
L-R: Mike Faist stars as Art and Zendaya as Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS, an Amazon MGM Studios film. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise. © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If you’ve seen the wildly viral trailers for Challengers, which the woman in front of me at Barbie (2023) scandalously whispered to her boyfriend was the “Zendaya threesome movie,” then you know how it came to this because Zendaya sits at the corner of a toxic love triangle ratcheting ever tighter, spawned from a steamy visit to the two boys’ hotel room when they were all junior tennis players preparing to choose between college and the pro circuit.
“Yes, I know that he’s my ex, but can’t two people reconnect? ‘I only see him as a friend,’ the biggest lie I ever said” — bad idea right? by Olivia Rodrigo
In the study of patriarchal power structures, a common question asked by skeptics is who men are trying to impress if they have internalized the idea that women are of a caste below them. The answer is, of course, other men. “The gayest thing two dudes can be is straight,” as the only half-joking adage goes. Other men are often the only people men are taught to be emotionally vulnerable with, under the guise of “brotherhood,” “the bro-code,” or sayings like “the weekends are for the bois.” Of course, even with other men, emotional openness is not truly open within this social structure, but transmitted through rituals of bravado and puffed-up-pigeon-posturing. For men such as these, sexual gratification is not found in bed with a woman, but in bragging to their bros about it later. This misdirected sexual desire stands on a foundation of emotional and sexual repression even amongst the most sexually “free” lothario. This dynamic is key to understanding young men who jerk off together, and men who can participate in threesomes while defining themselves as wholly straight. In Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name; Bones and All) supercharges his exploration of this phenomenon by marrying it to the competitive nature of professional tennis, which is itself a stand-in for art and artistic flow-states. It’s a brilliant and thrilling cocktail, but he didn’t mix it alone. The script is penned by Justin Kurtizkes, a New York City playwright known for The Sensuality Party, and, more recently, for being depicted in the abstract by Johnathan Magaro (The Big Short, Showing Up) in Celine Song’s directorial debut and Oscar darling, Past Lives (2023). The man knows just a little bit about love triangles and liking your wife’s ex.
Faist plays Art Donaldson, a decorated professional tennis player at the top of the world. He’s in his 40s, and he’s gotten every title there is to get except the US Open, and he’s tired. He’s the best, but he’s tired of it. The fight’s gone out, which is nothing but a turn-off for his wife and coach, the once-ingenue Tashi Duncan, who nurses a dangerous-looking scar on her knee. When they arrive at what they think will be an easy tournament, they find out that Patrick Zweig, Donaldson’s ex-best friend and Tashi’s ex, is competing — a mind-game threat to Donaldson if there ever was one.
“You don’t know what tennis is.”
”What is it?”
”It’s a relationship.” – Tashi Donaldson
In Challengers, tennis is art, art is a competition, and art is sex. If you’ve read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, then you’ll know a large chunk of that famous book about the lifestyle of pursuing art is dedicated to navigating having family and friends and making art at the same time. It helps blocked artists understand the connection between their work and their emotional state of mind, and how the two cannot truly be separated. When an artist, or in the case of Challengers, an athlete, is looking for a breakthrough, the gravity of that struggle drags everything with it. It’s a film that can only be made by artists who have explored their sexuality as deeply as they have their own artistry, which makes for a truly special experience. Art is returning after an injury, Tashi wishes her recovery could have been that easy, and Patrick wishes his career could have been as well. Jealously, rivalry, misplaced blame, and misunderstood desire, it’s all three world-class artists throwing profound tantrums because they can’t get the metaphorical typewriter off their metaphorical desk.
L-R: Mike Faist stars as Art and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS, an Amazon MGM Studios film. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise. © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Zendaya is one of our youngest and greatest movie stars, even though, until this year, she hadn’t really starred in movies. Euphoria (2019-) is a TV show, and she’s barely more than a prop in Dune (2021) and the MCU Spider-Man films (though she’s maybe the only person who knew what film they were making in Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)). But between Dune Part Two and Challengers this year, Zendaya has arrived. Challengers sees her begin with a twist on the Hollywood “sex pot” brand of golden age movie stars before transforming over the years into the more modern, steely movie star of today. The film freewheels back and forth through time showing us the before and after of these three lovebirds. Faist’s first sequence sees Art as a silent giant, but in the past, he’s a gangly chatterbox. Young Art is following Patrick around like a puppy, begging the more successful player to throw their next match. Fast forward to adult Patrick, and his debit card is declined at a cheap motel. How did it come to this?
The two leading men are, themselves, stars made new in this film. Faist should have already received an Oscar nomination for his role in West Side Story (2021), and O’Connor is getting a lot of buzz for this year’s Chimera, where he reportedly plays an Indiana Jones-esque figure. They are fascinating and charismatic actors to watch, with O’Connor’s world-class sneer and Faist’s puppy-dog eyes and the pair’s matching star-making workout routines. Their back-and-forth as friends and rivals is hilarious and enticing. They are titanic flashes of black and red and blue and white against the green concrete of the tennis court, dueling for 90 minutes and across decades. The tempo of their rivalry sets the tempo for the mile-a-minute score and flashy cutting style.
“It’s exciting to see you this way” – from Challengers
I could write another thousand words about the clean, imaginative filmmaking behind the camera of Challengers, but I’ll try to keep it to four shots. First off, this isn’t just a horny film because you get to see movie stars in bed, it’s also because the camera’s horny the same way Kubrick’s was in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). There is a less than 50-frame shot that, I swear to god, looks like a reference to the infamously innuendo-riddled cover of Wolverine #6 (2003). Second, there is a wonderful long take of Zendaya nursing her knee under a tree that might be the Oscar clip if they don’t skip those again next year. Third, there is a shot of her and O’Connor in a parking lot that’s so electric I would have jumped out of my seat if I wasn’t trying to remain professional. Fourth, there is a shot where Guadagnino pulls off a technique that filmmakers have been failing to make work for years, and I think he finally got it right. Some of you will think he didn’t, and you’re wrong. You’ll still have fun though. Don’t worry, it’s very quick.
L-R: Zendaya stars as Tashi and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS, an Amazon MGM Studios film. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise. © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In a world where Netflix is now censoring the art on its platform to appease so-called adults who never matured past the age of 12, using the movie star status of Zendaya to turn an event about sexual competition into a cultural event is daring, but not as daring as the film’s editing, score, and cinematography. All are propulsive and innovative. Even if this cast of stars wasn’t giving incredibly fun performances, the technique of the film would be a roller coaster ride for audiences. Incredibly fun and experimental in ways that are sure to make audiences lean forward instead of roll their eyes, Challengers is one of the most exciting and pure fun times I’ve had in theaters since Top Gun: Maverick in 2022. And it has even more to say. Part of a new, post-Oppenheimer wave of drama films taking IMAX screens from the traditional superhero and sci-fi films that have been the format’s bread and butter for so long, Challengers is an event in the making you don’t want to miss.
In theaters April 26th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Amazon MGM Studios Challengers webpage.
Final Score: 5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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