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The Sensational, Sultry Game of Challengers

 
When Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) likens playing tennis to a relationship between two people in varying sync, it comes off as mere ostentatious metaphor -a way to make a game feel more profound than it actually is. And yet years later when she has a heated argument with her boyfriend Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) in her university dorm, we see their points fire back and forth between each other like a tennis ball being served and parried by two incredibly fierce players. Emotions, resentments, history, ego -it all just crosses and re-crosses, even over the course of years, until somebody inevitably has to miss their hit; somebody has to win.
Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is a movie about a relationship that plays out on the tennis court. Quite literally we see its entire history expressed in the margins of an intense match at a Challenger tournament in New Rochelle, New York between Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). As they trade swings, always between them watching astute and stone-faced from the sidelines is Tashi -the third critical figure in this relationship, deftly invested in how it resolves. Guadagnino applies the tennis metaphor to how he structures the whole movie, bouncing backward and forward in time between Art being married to Tashi, to her dating Patrick, Art’s career highs and Patrick’s slumps. It’s an often harsh and rocky game that he is playing, but on a couple occasions that graceful perfect sync that Tashi alluded to is achieved, when all three of these hyper-competitive figures are in harmony.
The climactic match is the primary framing device, though the story proper is contained very slickly within it -a story of two talented doubles players who at the same time thirteen years ago met and were instantly smitten by the already far more accomplished Tashi, whom they are as attracted to for her game as her sexual appeal. For her part, she discovers a great deal of power to manipulate them -whether consciously or not. And from this point, sex and sport are very intricately intertwined. The match is set and the competition on when Tashi centres herself between the two in a near-threesome sexual encounter in their room, later promising to give her number to whoever wins a match between them. Guadagnino identifies the sexual drive of Patrick and Art as innately competitive, but he certainly sees Tashi as more than the prize.
The extent of her own machinations with regards to her “two white boys” is never fully clear, though the insinuation persists after a critical moment that ends her own tennis career that she vicariously lives her former dream out through Art in particular. But both clearly represent different fascinating priorities, even as they are united in their adamant fixation with her over many years while she seems to have limited affections for them. And in this curious lack of emotional space, Zendaya gives probably the best performance of her career thus far. It’s a balancing act of authentic conviction and mystique -you know where she stands on some values but she maintains severe emotional distance, both from the guys and the audience. She’s always laser-focused into the game of her relationship with these men, even where she lets slip those signs of regret of involving herself with them and how it has entrenched her. Also, let it not be overlooked how Zendaya, though not having a particularly imposing figure, is utterly commanding in this part, both in the physical, athletic sense and in a sexual one.
Her co-stars are impeccable too -Josh O’Connor making the leap from British stage and screen to mainstream Hollywood fare with a disarming fierceness unexpected of someone who played King Charles; while Mike Faist excellently takes charge of that old-school performer charisma he’d demonstrated so naturally in West Side Story -it’s honestly a delight to see him get more opportunities. Even when their characters are not, Faist and O’Connor are in sync, playing with great chemistry and considered nuance the dimensions of the characters, the calibration of their charms and rougher edges in pursuit of Tashi. Patrick is more impulsive and aggressive, but Art has his own manipulative streak -as he tries to sabotage his friend’s relationship with Tashi while at college, and after their break-up is pretty transparent in his inclinations towards her. But again in the spirit of that game, Tashi is in full awareness of this -and both guys are fairly naive. There is clearly a sense of Art being the safe choice to settle down with -submissive where Patrick is domineering.
This is fully conscious on Guadagnino’s part as he shoots all three with an erotic gaze -lingering in tense slow-mo on their toned and sweat-capped bodies as they play, utilizing sharp lighting and deliberate close-ups to accentuate the sexual appeal in their features, their athleticism. He’s not subtle about it at all -that sexual balance between the three of them is as key as anything. And while Tashi is as crucial to that, and is a lens through which the sexuality is interpreted,  it is just as pronounced, if not more so between the two of them exclusively. There are times when the movie seems to be suggestive, both figuratively and literally, that Tashi is the necessary force to opening up their sexual attraction towards one another. That key heated scene early on, where she manoeuvres them into kissing each other on the bed, with its recollection of an equivalent moment of ecstatic surrender in Y Tu Mama Tambien, backs this point up and informs a vital understanding of their relationship for the next decade and change -Guadagnino finding any moment he can through the rest of the movie to emphasize the underpinning homoerotic sensuality existing permanently between the two.
Challengers is a very sexy movie -and not just in the sultry way Guadagnino shoots his cast and their relationship among each other. The movie on the whole is so vibrant, pulsating in its edit and pace -which as much as the cinematography, allows you to feel the space and the figures within it. And it can't be overstated how powerfully the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross factors into this as well. Consistent and tremulous and intense. As in the central tennis match, its momentum builds with each volley between time period and character. The very structure that Guadagnino imposes is a reflection of the intense psycho-sexual dance being enacted on the court, and he ensures that his audience is as thrilled by it as he is. And it's what makes the movie's ending so exciting and satisfactory -regardless of apparent narrative ambiguity that in the moment couldn't matter less. Balance is struck.
Challengers may be the most mainstream-friendly of Guadagnino's English films thus far, but it does not feel tempered in any way. In fact, it is quite bold, particularly in terms of its overt sexuality and erotic subtext, for a 2024 American release of such a scope -a lot of credit must be paid to Zendaya, whose producer role and star power greatly increased its reach. It is a sensational piece. No tennis movie that I know of has used the context of the sport and the sport itself so inventively or radically, has made it so uniquely compelling as a metaphor. And no tennis movie, in terms both aesthetic and sensual, has looked so good.  

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