Challengers centers around a tennis match that will define the lives of both men on the court. But if you asked me who won, I’m not sure I could tell you.
And such is the appeal of Challengers: It’s the perfect sports movie for the kind of person who may not be drawn to watching sports. Spanning more than a decade, Challengers follows the professional and personal lives of three tennis players. But Challengers has almost nothing in common with other movies about tennis, or any other films in the sports genre, for that matter – the closest comparisons you might find would be rooted in sports anime (like Masaaki Yuasa’s Ping Pong).
So many sports movies center on the “team” dynamic rather than the individual, which makes sense given that most teams involve a complex ecosystem. Tennis (singles, anyway) is one of a few popular sports in which the match is 1-on-1, making it the perfect canvas for director Luca Guadagnino’s intense and sexually charged Challengers.
The purpose of the tennis match that holds several futures in the balance? Ostensibly, it’s one that coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) sets up for her professional player husband Art (Mike Faist) to help him get his head back in the game. A lower-level tournament not meant for the pros, Tashi hopes being able to hammer the competition will help Art regain his confidence before his tennis career ends in tatters. Art finds himself facing off against Patrick (Josh O’Connor), one of his former best friends and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend, who views the match as his best shot to turn his career back to the pros. As the two volley on-court, Challengers take us off-court through the muddy relationships between all three characters.
A small but refreshing note about those flashbacks: they look shockingly age appropriate. For a group in their late 20s and early 30s, Faist, O’Connor and Zendaya all play convincing-looking high schoolers up to professionals facing the tail ends of their athletic careers. The youthful looks of all three actors help, but something about the make-up, styling and wardrobe feel so well integrated with everything the film is trying to do, right down to a simple t-shirt that makes multiple appearances. Guadagnino’s care with these details helps keep the film tight and precise even when everything happening to the characters on screen is a mess.
And those well-placed details are in step with the rest of the visuals of the movie, because Challengers looks stunning, from beginning to end. The camerawork on display is inventive and gazing, lingering on the athleticism of the trio. Everyone is constantly glistening with sweat, so it’s not surprise that everyone is constantly thirsty. Even minor off-court moments charge the proceedings wherever possible, as Art and Patrick nosh on every phallic-shaped food they can find, from churros to bananas. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s sexy soundtrack underscores that chemistry in an unrelentless way, to the point that the movie simply wouldn’t be the same kind of suspenseful thrill without it.
But beneath the sweaty and statuesque athletes, the charged glances, and the pulsating score, Challengers is a mind game layered on a clever script and standout performances. When Tashi meets Art and Patrick, she is attracted to the unspoken energy between them, and from that moment onward, the film revolves around the dynamics and manipulation between all three. It’d be lazy to call the trio a love triangle, because their messy entanglement is one that defies standard categorization, working with layers of competitive energy, lust, control, and support.
From the film’s start, Tashi is interested in manipulating the people around her to push them to the edge of discomfort and growth, and Zendaya imbues the character with a steely, calculating fortitude. Tennis, she explains, isn’t a game: it’s a relationship. O’Connor’s performance also stands out, managing to pull in just the right amount of sleaze with curious charm. Faist has perhaps the more thankless task of being the steady, supportive husband, but he weaves in enough casual menace and confidence with his love-struck-puppy performance to stand up to his castmates.
It is no surprise that by the end of the film, I’d lost track of who won. Because for these three, the thrill is not in having what you want, but in pursuing it.