CHALLENGERS

Told with a non-linear story structure, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers tells the story of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), an ex-tennis prodigy turned coach, and the friendship - and rivalry - of school friends Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist)

I have seen this film described elsewhere as a romantic drama, but honestly there is little romance involved.

Sex, yes. Lust, certainly. But romance… despite the love triangle that plays out throughout the film the only real love that ever threatens to rear its head is between the characters and tennis.

Because Tennis Is everything to these people. And everything is tennis. Friendships, tennis. Relationships, tennis. Sex, tennis.

And regardless of the fact that I wouldn’t know one end of a tennis racket from the other, I really liked challengers.

The non-linear way in which the story unfolds, bouncing from time period to time period, helps to maintain the tension that is playing out on screen, drip feeding information to the audience only as and when they need to know it, without ever getting confusing. There is always enough context on screen for you to know exactly where in time you are.

The performances are excellent. Faist and O’Connor have an easy charisma and a natural chemistry, that makes their friendship and history immediately believable.

But the real star is Zendaya who, with Challengers, demands attention as a leading actor. She is magnetic in the central role. She has expert control over everything that she does, and the preparation she put into the role - spending months working with a tennis coach, has really paid off. 

Her performance pulls in the audience. The strength of it making it impossible to look away. In much the same way that Art and Patrick get pulled in by her themselves.

As she sits, early in the film, on a rock by the sea, in a shimmering blue dress, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s mesmerising, almost hypnotic, L’oeuf seeping through like a low mist, they look on at her is if she is a mermaid - something ethereal and almost out of reach - not realising that to their friendship she is more a siren, who will lure them both in before they crash, stranded and helpless, into the rocks.

And I use the word something over someone here deliberately, because they’re not looking at her as a person, but as a thing with which to live out their school boy fantasies. And this is how she looks at them, something to play with, to have fun with, and later to live out her unfulfilled ambitions through.

Because, like I said, there is little romance at play here. They are all, at times, self serving and childish. Unlikeable and unsympathetic. Bouncing between each other when the moment suits them

With Tashi, at least, she is relatively up front about this. She is up front that tennis will always be her great love. Patrick sees this in her, even if he does openly want to use it to his own benefit. And Art… on some level knows it. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it to himself.

Challengers is one of the best films of this year so far. And will likely be a staple in top ten lists when 2024 comes to an end.

It is a sports drama that has its sport running through it like a stick of rock. Even when they’re not on the court they’re still playing it, as the mindset permeates everything that they do. Tennis is everything, and everything is tennis.

And it is a calling card, for anyone not already acutely aware of her talents, that Zendayas is a career to get excited about.