Challengers (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The surprise of the season: me, finding a romantic sports drama to be entertaining, riveting, and indeed challenging. Its central conceit -- that of a love triangle between young tennis pros -- is fun enough even without its shockingly effective cast of excellent actors. Its presentation for us is something akin to a Greek tragicomedy, where we access the trio from both interior and exterior perspectives as learn along with them how their actions in one time period echo through consequences and tribulations in other times of their lives. And, in the caring hands of director Luca Guadagnino, its energy is that of an arthouse thriller, one perhaps less explicitly erotic than we might prefer, but absorbingly sensual in its tactile pleasures.

To each of my points: first, the story itself. I loved Battle of the Sexes and its real-life basis more than I anticipated, too, but something about a sports drama completely divorced from biopic strictures was fiercely refreshing this time. Especially tennis, which I've always found rather elegant and indeed oddly intriguing in its singles-or-pairs setup. So to feature a duo who become a sort of trio, all with conflicting and competing professional desires (to say nothing of their personal desires), is a radically cool way of approaching people devoted to their craft. So many movies have been made about actors doing this, but not as many about athletes, at least not in such desperately physical and psychological ways. Zendaya (The Greatest Showman, Malcolm & Marie) has never looked nor acted better as the pro-turned-manager due to an injury she never seems to have dealt with mentally, while Mike Faist (West Side Story, The Bikeriders) makes an incredible case for himself as a hunky leading man caught in an existential crisis and dealing with insecurities on all fronts. Their counterpart enters in the form of Josh O'Connor (God's Own Country, Emma.), who similarly delivers a career-best performance as the rakish pro-turned-hustler fated to triangulate the other two.

Structured less as a puzzle box and more as a knot, the film leaps back and forth in time to demonstrate in real time how the characters' actions in the past impact them in the present. It is occasionally confusing, but the heady swirl of strong personalities and usually bad decisions make for a sort of fever dream effect on us, offering the right insight just when we need it to understand a key moment in the present. One of the film's key scenes takes place fairly early, as Zendaya visits the motel room of the guys, whose partnership is unusually close already, and ends up seducing them so much that they engage with each other as she leans back to admire her handiwork. It's never -- and I mean never -- quite clear what game she is playing (it's telling that she's the only one whose athletic dreams were dashed, yet she manages to maintain and even increase her power over virtually everyone around her), her enigmatic presence works best when she's at her most instinctive, reacting in real time to the stimuli around her before retreating to scheme and calculate some more. The guys are much easier to read, and the implied inclusion of O'Connor's queerness was welcome for this viewer.

There will be some who are disappointed in this film not being -- as was suggested in its marketing -- about a throuple, and while there is certainly not group sex happening on screen, this film does dramatize the toxicity of this kind of emotional and psychological investment in two intimate partners exceptionally well. Much can be discussed about all three characters, none of whom are very healthy individually (mentally, that is; all are in peak physical condition) and so none of whom are very healthy when paired up. Some might compare this film to others in the popular narrative subgenre that show episodic scenes out of chronological order in order to deconstruct a relationship and its apparently fated demise. This isn't wholly inaccurate, but its kinetic energy is far more arresting than the usual marital talkfest, and its finale leaves us on a surprising high note after the much heavier weight of all that came before.

I'd have liked more workshopping between the writer and editor, as a streamlined approach to the narrative would have helped me feel more grounded in each scene and, I think, would feel less gimmicky in terms of pure storytelling. This story doesn't need the volleys back and forth in time; we get enough exciting shots of that on the court. Speaking of which (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the sports scenes were actually really interesting to me! Shots are served by the characters and the camera in tandem -- helped by a relentless, propulsive score that leans heavily into techno beats that really worked for me -- making our experience of the film one of some complicity. They aren't walking away from these encounters unscathed, and neither are we; in fact, we're having fun while they hit us around. One shot in the climax literally has us in the ball's POV, and it's just as absurd as it is gut-wrenching.

These actors take their jobs as seriously as Guadagnino clearly does, and dialogue that could often be laughable or flat often feels red-hot and dirty. They gleam with sweat most of the time, cameras swooning a little too close to them all as they breathe and serve and hit on and off the court. They're performing like tried and true stars of old with a script that caters to them and under the eye of accomplished filmmakers who support them in getting that chance. They all embrace a ferocity and eroticism we rarely see in films these days, and I'm not talking about steamy sex a la Bridgerton. Even on the court, with stylized presentation, the drama between characters is just as clear and intentional as it is off the court, where their rivalries and intrigues mirror the action. While the film reaches for intangibles, it never lets anything get in the way of its own fierce physicality or its kinetic forward motion, a masterful approach to this material.