in brief: a tennis champion returning from injury and a journeyman who could have been great meet in the final of a small-town, low-level tournament, but the rivals were once best friends, until they both fell in love with the same superstar in waiting, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya).
for me: context is king. having loved the energy and crackling sexuality of the trailer, i decided i would see Challengers no matter what. when it was advertised as a Cineworld preview i moved a work shift and decided not to read any reviews. nevertheless, as the day approached i was bombarded with five-star ratings everywhere i looked, and even film-agnostic colleagues were jealous that i was getting to see it early. in the context of so much expectation, anything less than jaw-dropping originality and daring would come up short… when Luca Guadagnino gets it right, his films are magnificent, but he doesn’t always make it to the end of a film without going off the boil. Call Me By Your Name is a gorgeous film, but a twenty-minute epilogue too long; A Bigger Splash was bold and creative, but tagged a half hour of Midsummer Murders onto the end. Challengers has five-star performances, five-star dramatic tension in the sporting encounters, and five-star intimacy bristling into scorching sexuality, but it doesn’t coalesce into a five-star film. the throuple – as i’m sure must be the case in the real world – is more exciting as potential than it is in realisation. other than the scene that carries the trailer, it’s your average story of jealousy and obsession, and as much as the film ping-pongs between eras to keep us guessing who has done what with whom and when, it isn’t as transgressive as it wanted to be. i was fascinated to learn that the screenwriter is married to Celine Song, because i was reminded during this film how much better Past Lives carried the tension of the love that could have been against the love that is. even before that films perfectly calibrated ending it was saying so many truthful and refreshing things about love and destiny, whereas this film was always diving down the typical narrative cul-de-sacs of temptation, anger, and regret, before reaching a final shot that made no emotional sense to me. it is steamy and visceral, and the pumping soundtrack elevates the heartrate and threatens to drown out the insincere lies the trio tell each other and themselves. it’s stunningly shot, especially the tennis sequences where we are often in the firing line of brutal strokes, and the camera’s most novel conceit is wisely saved for the final sequence, when the drama and disorientation has to be at its highest. sadly, it’s also a bit of a puppet show, and it’s too easy to see which strings are being tugged on at any one time. i’m not saying i didn’t respond like a good marionette, but i could feel myself being manipulated, and it slightly soured the fun.
mvp: i’m not sure whether the soundtrack blew a speaker in our screen, because i believe that the thunderous Reznor/Ross score may not have been designed to obliterate dialogue to the extent that it sometimes did. anyway, whatever role the composers were meant to play, they still came second to the luminous Zendaya. she brings Faist and O’Connor alive, transforms from teen to adult with ease and conviction, and dominates the court so completely that she could be the missing Williams sister. it’s hard to imagine her putting a foot wrong at the moment, and hopefully her producing power will keep plugging her into interesting projects with exciting film-makers, and perhaps even see her behind the camera herself before too long.
verdict: remove yourself from the hype and Challengers is sexy, thrilling, exciting film-making with a starring role that could be an early awards leader.
director Luca Guadagnino // writer Justin Kuritzkes // released 26/04/24
onedottoomany 