“Challengers” Review: Love is a Tennis Match in Luca Guadagnino’s Steamy Sports Drama

The Friendly Film Fan reviews Zendaya’s new star vehicle​.

There’s a moment in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers where the energy shifts; up to that moment – viewers may recognize it as the hotel room scene from the film’s trailer – the film is bouncing back and forth on its feet, having stayed in the game just enough to keep things exciting but, at least in appearance, not 100% certain of how it’s meant to navigate whatever comes next…or even what comes next. But once this scene takes place, and the film finds its footing amongst what, up to that point, has largely been an unconventional but inspired edit, the electricity of the film could singe the arm hair off of any audience member paying even a modicum of attention to what’s really going on. This is the moment where the viewer will know if they are going to enjoy themselves or not, and for those clued into its particular brand of sensual tricks by this time, the subsequent thrill ride is intoxicating.
 
Juxtaposed against a climactic tennis match between its two rival hunks in Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), Challengers’ story revolves around the two men’s mutual obsession over tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). After meeting the phenom at a party following a hot-blooded tennis match, the pair find themselves entangled in a will-they-won’t-they web of arousal, each magnetized by Tashi’s gravity and entirely unable to resist her pull (this would be the aforementioned hotel room scene). From here, the two men are pitted with and against one another over the course of decades in a mad scramble to determine who ultimately deserves Tashi’s attention, each perhaps too aware that Tashi is in turn playing her own game, and true victory – to her – is in the act itself.
 
There are a great many things that recommend this movie to an audience hungry for cinematic excitement, but what ultimately makes it work beyond the simplistic synopsis offered above is that it just moves. That’s not to say it doesn’t ever slow down or that there aren’t moments which are perhaps a little less invigorating on the whole, but it never stops outright in what it’s attempting to do. Luca Guadagnino is obsessed with the sensual pull of people towards and away from each other; he’s obsessed with the match, the back-and-forth, the meeting of two, all set to a club-worthy score from Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross which recalls some of their best work from and, I would argue, is their best work since The Social Network. There’s an energy to Challengers that’s not simply irresistible, but invigorating as the camera takes the POV of the ground beneath and sweat drips down as a tennis ball hits. There may be more eloquent ways of phrasing it, but put simply: it’s hot. It’s sexy. Guadagnino is a director entirely taken with the foreplay of it all, in the tease of what it all leads to, and it’s reflected in his direction of this film – how he at first endears us to Tashi and then tells us how we shouldn’t be, and yet we can’t help but be pulled in by her power, which rests comfortably and perfectly on the shoulders of cinema’s new “it” girl. (And, for those curious enough to care, the tennis matches themselves are absolutely exhilarating in just the right ways. Eat your heart out, King Richard.)
 
While everyone who’s witnessed her work on Euphoria is well aware that she could ace a more complicated part than her Spider-Man appearances (to say nothing of her brilliant work in Dune: Part Two), Zendaya’s turn in this is nothing short of magnificent, a movie star turn in the purest sense of the term. Not for one second does the viewer ever doubt that she’s in charge, nor for a moment does it feel as if the film gets away from her. In fact, one might go so far as to say the film can’t get away from her, so powerful is her pull. There’s a single shot in particular, wherein Tashi goes to sit down by a tree, which cinches the deal. Zendaya holds the camera’s gaze for no more than a minute at the most, and yet one can’t help but be enraptured by how she holds it, how it’s entirely her frame and hers alone. Tashi, to put it mildly, is not exactly a likeable individual and yet when Zendaya is on screen, she becomes the center of it no matter where or how she stands in the frame. This of course is not merely confirmed but supported by both Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist’s not-quite-equally excellent performances, and it’s their dynamic which ultimately drives the plot forward. Faist continues to improve with every second of screen-time he gets, but it’s Josh O’Connor whom American audiences – at least those who didn’t watch The Crown – will likely be the most taken with. There’s a certain shit-eating charisma to him one can’t help but be excited by, and O’Connor is more than up to the task of playing that up whenever the script requires it.
 
Challengers may not be entirely flawless – there’s not one moment in the whole of its runtime where I would believe Mike Faist could be 40, as the script at one time claims – but it is the movie of 2024 most comfortable with the flaws it has; they’re bugs, not features, sure, but they don’t actually matter because the movie itself knows that it has you regardless. When sweat looks this cinematic, when characters are this complicated, when filmmaking is this sexy, how it could it not? It may not end up being the year’s best movie – there’s still a lot to come – but when all is said and done, barring a truly bonkers contender for the title, this will undoubtedly be its hottest.
 
I’m giving “Challengers” an 8.4/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan