Challengers: An Exhilarating and Tense Love Story
Last week, the world witnessed the release of Challengers (2024), a new film directed by Luca Guadagnimo, best known for his work on Bones And All (2022) and Call Me By Your Name (2017). The movie follows a group of three tennis superstars: Tashi Duncan, played by Zendaya; Art Donaldson, played by Mike Faist; and the former college star Patrick Zweig, played by Josh O’Connor. When Art’s tennis Career is not going well, Tashi sets him up for a low-stakes challenger match, causing him to racket against Patrick, Tashi’s former lover and Art’s former best friend. Did I mention the three are in a fifteen-year-long love triangle?
The main cast of this film is stellar in each of their ways. We’ve seen Zendaya’s acting skills before in HBO’s series Euphoria (2019-2021), amongst other roles; you can see how Zendaya was allowed to cut loose in her performance as Tashi. In this movie, Zendaya is expertly subtle and over-the-top in her performance. This actress seems all at once able to deliver one of the smarmiest smirks I’ve seen since Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and make subtle head and eye movements that don’t come off as hammy, cartoonish, or over-acted but rather, genuinely unsettling in a way that perfectly illustrates the character’s fury.
Josh O’Connor is also fantastic as Patrick, perfectly encapsulating the reckless, promiscuous, and “jock-y has-been," desperate to return to his former glory. Mike Faist initially put me off during his portrayal of Art Donaldson, but while his style of acting in the film took some getting used to, by the time the third act came around, Faist had me—hook, line, and sinker!
The score is yet another amazing attribute of this film. Musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross go all in, delivering a pulsating, synth-heavy techno sound that drives up the tension during the matches played. Reznor and Ross, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Social Network (2010), might be on their way to receiving their second for their stellar work in Challengers (2024).
Going into the film, I expected it to be another mainstream erotic drama like the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Luckily, my expectations were subverted, and while there are scenes in the film that are steamier than a sauna, the most erotically shot scenes were those taking place during tennis matches. This was a choice made by director Luca Guadagnino, who stages the tennis matches in the film to make the actors look like chiseled marble statues of gods. This creative decision supports the recurring theme: love itself and how being in love with someone can be a competition in many ways.
Guadagnino also blurs the lines between tennis and love by filming conversations like tennis matches—the camera is fixed in two places and cuts between the two shots only after a word is spoken. Still, even without the thematic weight conveyed through the matches, for a film dealing with sports, it is shot brilliantly, with angles from underneath the court and exhilarating point-of-view shots (one of which I dare not spoil for readers). If Guadagnino knows anything, it’s how to direct a film.
As this article ends, I would like to add a more personal open note to the paper and its readers, as this will be my final Lamron article. I will be transferring to Binghamton to study filmmaking full-time. Long story short, it’s been a wonderful ride with you all! If I can leave anyone who happens to be reading with anything, remember that movies are magical things. They can expertly convey the entire human spectrum of emotion and experience in just twenty-four still images. When something that spectacular is at your disposal, never settle for less than what you want, whether that be an emotionally investing film that could be shown in the Louvre or something just to pass the time. I believe in cinema. I believe in the power it has to change lives. I am grateful for my wonderful friends at The Lamron, who have guided me through my journey and given me so many things to be proud of from my time here. Thank you all, and so long…
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons