Movie Review: 'Challengers' Starring Zendaya

Challengers (2024)

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Written by Justin Kuritzkes

Starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor

Release Date April 26th, 2024

Published April 26th, 2024

Sexuality is a spectrum on which we all exist. The notion of straight or gay as a binary dynamic of sexuality is outdated to the point of being silly. That's not to say that people's desires, what turns them on, can't be just one thing that happens to adhere to the notion of straight or gay, it's merely an acknowledgment that sexuality for anyone can be a fluid concept depending on circumstance. I happen to fall into the straight category but I am comfortable acknowledging that I have never really been challenged on my sexuality and that I have a wide array of friends who land on various places on the sexual spectrum. When there is so much variety in the world, it seems odd to place oneself in a particular box. Unless boxes are what you are into, the spectrum is vast.

Challengers is a rare film that explores the idea of sexuality as a spectrum. The three protagonists of Challengers, two men and a woman, have a brief, exploratory experience that gets at the heart of how fluid sexual attraction can be. The film also reframes what sex can be in an orgasmic final showdown that reveals these three characters true desires in a fast paced, eye-catching, and breathtaking final few minutes. Director Luca Guadagnino appears to be making the case that anything can be sex its if the circumstances align.

Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy caught up in a love triangle with a pair of fellow prodigies. Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) have been friends since their early teen years spent at a tennis academy. Both are gifted players in very different ways. Art is methodical and well practiced, Patrick gets by on brut strength and determination, along with an unusual serve. The two young men compliment each other and when each falls for Tashi, it becomes not unlike a tennis match filled with strategic points and breaks.

But Tashi is no mere ball at play among these two players. She's their coach, teaching them both about tennis and other such things. But, literally, she does become Art's Tennis Coach as his career advances while Patrick seeks her as a Coach later in his career. The film shifts through time effortlessly layering in the story to build toward that remarkable final act tennis match where Art and Patrick are playing the game of their lives with Tashi acting as mastermind while losing herself in the excitement of tennis.

For Tashi, life is tennis. Her relationship with Patrick falls apart when he refuses to talk about tennis while the two are becoming intimate. Her relationship and eventual marriage to Art is tethered in part to his success on the tennis court and she's not afraid to tell him that if he can't maintain his high standard of play, she will lose interest and leave him. This constant pressure from Tashi has made Art one of the most successful players in tennis, a grand slam winner, and a favorite for the upcoming U.S Open.

But first, he must confront Patrick who becomes his opponent at what was supposed to be a warm-up event. Patrick is down on his luck. He's got no money and is sleeping in his car. He needs to win this tournament to earn his way to play in the Open and keep his flailing career alive. That said, he still has an immense untapped talent that Tashi still finds appealing. When he pitches her on the idea of coaching him, she doesn't say no even though everything in her well manicured life with Art says she should say no.

There are a lot of emotions at play, all hidden behind rackets and nets and balls. The tennis in Challengers is extraordinarily well presented. Guadagnino beautifully captures the speed of the game and the intensity of a final. It's exhilarating to become the ball batted back and forth between these two incredible players as the camera bounds back and forth, twisting and turning in the air before being smashed back the other way. All the while a menacing club music score assaultively asserts itself into the scene.

But it's not just tennis that is being played here. I don't want to spoil this, so I won't go into further detail. I will just say that Guadagnino has built the final tennis match into the film brilliantly. The film jumps around in time, using moments from this final match between Art and Patrick throughout the movie, cutting away from it and always coming back to it. All of the cutting and the backstory creating and building tension to the release of the final moments when all is revealed. A true climax.

It's an exceptional piece of filmmaking, sexy, fast paced, and fraught with bigger ideas about sex, relationships, identity and priorities. All three of these main characters are exposed in the process, revealing themselves and coming to understand themselves and their desires as the story progresses to that incredible final series of scenes. I'm not a smoker but if the trope is a cigarette after a vigorous sexual encounter, you might want to have one handy for the end of this tennis match. That's all I'm saying about that.

Challengers is one of my early best of the year flicks. It's a pro level piece of filmmaking with three terrific lead performances. It's got bigger ideas built literally and metaphorically into a sports movie mold. Zendaya is an effortless movie star who grabs your attention and forces you to take her seriously. While the two men in her life are playing a game to win her affection, she is playing them both to get what she wants, a connection to the thing she loves more than anything, the dopamine hit she gets from an amazing game of tennis.

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