• Release year: 2024
• Director: Luca Guadagnino.
• Producers: Luca Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor, Amy Pascal and Zendaya.
• Screenplay by: Justin Kuritzkes.
• Cinematography by: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.
• Music by: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Shotgun Commentary: aesthetically-pleasing essay on love. More visuals than actual content, though.

Review

Challengers is exactly what it advertises, a love triangle between three athletes who are fit beyond belief. Sadly, the hype created around the film has been so massive and exaggerated that the product itself feels like a big disappointment, even if it is quite good. After the waves of fans on social media gushing about the film and singing praises about the acting…one expects a little more than the movie gives.

Simplicity in the city

The story is pretty simple, two guys like a girl who can’t be bothered to choose one of them. The whole film feels like this constant competition over a woman who’s more interested in training them than loving them. Kinda like This Means War (2012), but with an emotionally unavailable love interest.

The premise itself is a little hard to swallow. While Zendaya is a beautiful woman, and Tashi (Zendaya’s character) is a goddess playing tennis, her attitude and injury do very little to keep that appeal going, making her relationship with both Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connnor) look incredibly artificial. During their teenager years, it makes a lot of sense for them to be mindlessly drooling over her, but in their thirties? Didn’t they get tired already? Sure, it is possible, but man…get a life or something…

Additionally, there is one particular sequence that doesn’t help at all with the already fragile reality of their relation dynamics, a sequence where a car needs two hours to do the return journey of a two-minute trip, where Tashi randomly gets dramatic over being called out on her bad behaviour towards her family (a family that she clearly cares very little about during the whole film), and where the conversation held seems to skip from theme to theme like the audience is missing half of the footage. This scene is pretty relevant to the story, so one might have hoped for a more logical, thought-out development.

Why a good researcher is paramount

Then again, the other big, fat, error in the story also happens during a key moment: Tashi’s injury. Anyone who has ever distended a knee, like yours truly, knows that you can not, and I mean CAN NOT, flex or extend your leg while the knee is out. If you try, not only you might break a tendon, nerve, or break a muscle, you will also yell louder than a pig in slaughter.

Plus, the leg is pretty much locked in place until that bone is back in so, even if you didn’t understand the concept of pain, you wouldn’t be able to move it. The way Tashi moves her leg around will pull anyone with knowledge about this injury completely out of the film and make them relive their own spicy memories with some extra content about what could’ve happened had they moved their legs like that.

Lotta noise, not much delivery

Speaking of spicy, one of the big attractions of this film was the way it approaches sex and relationships… Honestly, there is nothing new here. If three people making out still knocks your sock off, you might have been living under a rock, so this might come as a shock to you. However, if you have been living in a normal society, you’ve probably seen this before in previous films, series, or real life.

Aside from that particular detail, Challengers offers nothing new. In fact, unless you are in love with any of the characters, the intimate scenes are average to the point of boredom. The constant comparisons between sexual intercourse and tennis are interesting, especially regarding Tashi’s mindset, but they are not as relevant as they should have been. The narrative could have benefitted of more emphasis on Tashi as an individual instead of an object of desire for two men.

As mentioned before, Tashi is the most compelling character. Zendaya brings her personal charm into the film, channelling her inner bad b*tch to deliver a hypnotising character that you can’t get enough of. This charm is accentuated further when Tashi is in the presence of Art or Patrick, two simpletons who are playing three-in-a-row when Tashi is playing chess. The plainness and predictability of their behaviour is downright comical, making it all the more satisfying to see Tashi puppeteer them at will to chase her own pleasure and fulfilment.

Once again, looks are everything

One can’t talk about Challengers without mentioning the obvious: the visuals. First and foremost, props to the cinematographer for finding all the possible shots imaginable to cover a tennis match, underground nadir shot included. It could’ve done without the shaky subjective shots from the Art’s perspective, since they don’t have enough emotional effect to be worth the dizziness. Nevertheless, the ball’s perspective is an absolute masterpiece of a shot, absolutely gorgeous and unforgettable piece of cinematography.

Secondly, the bright colours are wonderful to establish this movie as a summer flick, giving it a clear context and mood, and making the aesthetics pop enough to maintain the spectator’s attention. The close-ups and slo-mos also add to this aim, providing interesting details of the character’s face and body movements in order to keep you glued to the action.

Lastly, it is bold to use a generic clubbing-in-a-cliché-action-film song as a main theme for a movie that mostly takes place in the daylight and is completely uninvolved with any clubbing or drug mobs. In this particular case, a type of melody more frequently heard as the background for a scene about criminals negotiating at a strip club, turns into an anthem to the toughness and power of Tashi, effectively turning around the female presence during tracks like that. It might just be the result of enduring way too many Steven Seagal films, but that change feels incredibly empowering.

All in all, Challengers is mostly visuals and Tashi, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and Zendaya absolutely eat, leaving barely any scraps for the rest of the crew to shine at all. The story is quite simple and not really innovative at all, but it is worth watching, even if it’s just to witness Mukdeeprom’s the creative storytelling.

Advice to take from this movie:

• If you are going to put a lot of work in a film, things like the main catalyst should have your attention. Do your research.
• A strong female character portrayed by a talented actress is all you need to make an interesting movie, it’s high time more people realised that.
• Tennis would be a lot more interesting if the camera was in the ball instead of outside the court.

What’s your take? Have you watched Challengers? Are you part of its huge fan club? If so, why? Is there any particular scene or moment that spoke to you?

Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀