We’re back, baby! Hey. Hi. It’s been a while. Have you missed me? I’ve missed being here. But we survived a long, contentless stretch and, not only are we back, we’re back with a bang. Could there be a better movie to break a dry spell than Challengers? I really don’t think so. This movie has been at the top of my watchlist for over a year. It was supposed to premiere at last year’s Venice Film Festival and then release in theaters in the Fall, but was pushed back following the SAG actors strike last summer. My anticipation was already sky high but the few weeks leading up to the release date exploded with hype all over social media following the press tour and early screenings of the film. I was trying to avoid spoilers on Twitter like this was a Marvel movie. The internet is obsessed with this movie. You could feel the energy and excitement in the theater (which was packed). So did Challengers live up to the massive hype? I would certainly say so.

This is a really hard movie to talk about without spoilers so for a more in-depth breakdown, stay tuned. But if you haven’t seen it and/or know nothing about it, Challengers is the new movie from director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor (young Prince Charles on The Crown) and Mike Faist. The movie introduces Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) as a teenage tennis prodigy who is lusted after by the showy Patrick Zweig (O’Connor) and his shy best friend Art Donaldson (Faist), lesser players than Tashi but still talented. Tashi starts dating Patrick. She later marries Art. When Patrick reenters the couple’s lives 13 years later, Tashi must reckon with the choices she’s made. So must the guys. This movie might have been made specifically for me. It has the perfect recipe for something I would like: tennis, Zendaya, a love triangle, snappy dialogue, pulsing energy. It’s so well done, it has style and attitude and drama but doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

At its core, Challengers is a movie about competition. Each character is motivated by the desire to win, whatever that means to them. On the surface, they are quite literally competing in tennis matches, but, as is true in real life as well, there is always more at stake. The movie uses the game of tennis as a stand-in for so much of the storytelling. There are winners and losers. There are prizes and rewards. There isn’t really much dialogue but there are a ton of looks and glances. So much is unspoken and is just physical. Like tennis. But more specifically, tennis is used here as a substitute for sex. Director Luca Guadagnino is typically known for making very sensual films with a lot of sex scenes, but Challengers doesn’t really have any. The physicality of the characters and their relationships are all played out through tennis. That’s the language they use to connect. The tennis scenes are also shot so intimately, with lingering closeups of the players’ faces and body parts, to further link the two concepts. 

With such a close knit story, the film really hinges on the performances of the leads and Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist all have chemistry that radiates off the screen. The relationship between each pairing is different and the energy between them changes to reflect that. Zendaya can really do no wrong and, while this was her first starring film role, I had zero doubts that she could pull it off. When her character of Tashi is introduced, she’s described as “the hottest woman alive” and I think everyone in the theater went “well yeah that’s accurate”. Her character is hard-edged and manipulative but it was so fun to see her be fully in charge and in control. I’ve only ever seen Josh O’Connor on The Crown (where I hated his character but he was great in the role) and this performance was a totally different side of him. Patrick is just a smirking douchebag and Josh O’Connor nails it. For such a slimeball, he’s still somehow intriguing and attractive. Mike Faist was a star in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (a criminally underrated movie) but Challengers showcases a less flashy performance from him. Art is almost too pure for all the cutthroat competition and Faist says so much with quiet body language. Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist have both absolutely perfected the longing, lovestruck faces. If anyone ever looked at me with the intensity they both look at Zendaya, I think I would spontaneously combust. But also their complicated, boyish friendship is played to such a pitch perfect note that in the wrong hands could throw the entire tone of the movie off kilter. We already knew Zendaya was a superstar, but look out for the other two to rise fast after this.

I think the performances alone would make this a good movie but what really sets it apart is the atmosphere it creates. The movie just takes off and runs the entire time. The timeline of the story is constantly cutting back and forth, whipping your head like a tennis spectator. It can lose you a few times regarding which time period we’re in, but you find your footing pretty easily. I thought the non sequential narrative was an unexpected and interesting choice. Visually, tennis has never looked so artistic and beautiful. Challengers shows you tennis from every conceivable angle: below the court, above the court, from the crowd, of the crowd, of the shadows, in close up, from the perspective of the players, from the perspective of the racquet, from the perspective of the ball, I could go on. Can you keep up with the points being played in the matches? Absolutely not. But it really doesn’t matter. It brings you totally inside of every shot. You feel the sun, smell the sweat. The smack of the tennis ball hitting the racquet is so visceral and satisfying. It’s a unique and jarring way of amping up the action during gameplay and keeping audiences on their toes. (Also, any time you actually did need to know the score, they added a scoreboard graphic to the screen like you were watching a match on TV which I thought was a nice touch.) Speaking of amped up, this is one of the parts of the movie I am most excited to talk about: the score. Not the score of the match, the music of the film. I’m not always one to notice the score of a movie, but this one is undeniable. As one review put it, “Rather than grab a racket and hit the tennis court, this is a movie that makes you want to get up and dance.” Composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the duo behind many film scores but likely most famously their Oscar-winning music for The Social Network, the Challengers score feels like being at a club. And not just musically. Experientially. In many scenes, the score comes in with a banging techno beat in the middle of a serious conversation between two characters (something I don’t think I have ever seen before), making it a little bit hard to hear what they’re saying (like when you’re out on the dance floor trying to have a conversation with your friend). It seems like that would be grating, but really it takes the seriousness out of everything and injects a jolt of electricity to the scene. Because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter what they’re saying. The movie is all about the energy. There are currently petitions online to play this score in clubs. DJs are already putting out remixes of it. I must confess I have listened to it on Spotify. It’s addictive and fun and seems like it wouldn’t work with the story of the film but, not only does it work, it elevates the whole project to a really special place.

Go see Challengers!!! Go see it in theaters so it does well and studios will get the message that we want more movies like this: low stakes, original stories with up-and-coming stars and talented directors! Go see it and come talk to me about your interpretation of the characters’ actions and motivations and the ambiguous ending! Go see it and then come back and read my spoiler section! It’s fun, it’s sexy, it has drama and tension but it still manages to be really funny. The dialogue is sharp and witty. The characters are complex and played to perfection. It has a unique look and feel. It really delivered on all fronts for me and was just a fantastic time at the movies. I think it is absolutely worth seeing.

Spoiler Section: I haven’t really done a spoiler section in a while because I want everyone to be able to read my full thoughts on something whether they’ve seen it or not but this movie needs real deep-diving. So, if you’ve made it this far, welcome. Let’s jump in. I saw that director Luca Guadagnino had said about making the movie that if it was going to be a love triangle, then all of the sides needed to touch. And they do. But it’s not exactly straightforward. Love flows in all directors but it’s not always the same kind of love and that’s where people get hurt. In thinking they mean the same thing when they don’t. I briefly mentioned above the way the movie substitutes tennis for sex and I don’t just mean that in the physicality displayed on the screen. I also mean it in the way sex signifies an intimate relationship. 

I see it this way: Patrick is in love with Art, Art is in love with Tashi, and Tashi is in love with tennis. Let’s break that down. I think what Patrick values most and misses most when we see him in present day is his relationship with Art. Not necessarily in a romantic way, but just as a best friend and tennis partner/opponent. He loves playing tennis with Art. He loves competing with him. He wants that back. Art has always been in love with Tashi. But not just her as a person, her tennis playing abilities. He falls in love with her when he watches her play for the first time and his initial compliments to her are about her game. Art’s love for Tashi is fully intertwined with the game of tennis and only continues to be so throughout their relationship as she becomes his coach and it’s the main thing they have to discuss. Tashi’s love language is tennis. It’s the only way she knows how to connect. She shows she cares through giving coaching advice, she talks about tennis during sex, she says early on the film that tennis is a relationship. Does she really love either of these guys? I don’t know. But she most definitely loves the sport. That’s how I see the film’s ending. It doesn’t matter who won or lost, Tashi screams out her impassioned “Come on!” because she finally got what she wanted: to see some really good tennis played with the intensity and fire she used to bring to it herself.

That does beg the question, though, what is she doing with these two guys if she doesn’t really love them? I think who she chooses to be with is based on how she wants to be seen or see herself. It’s not really about the boys at all, it’s about the versions of herself they reflect back to her. Patrick is a selfish asshole and sees that Tashi is really not a good person either. She doesn’t want to admit that to herself. He tells her he’s her peer, they are equals. He also says he’s not in her fan club. But Art is. Tashi wants to be adored and admired and Art puts her up on a pedestal which makes her happy for a while. Until the longer she’s up there, the less she feels like she deserves it. And Patrick swoops in to personify her bad decisions and bring her down to Earth. She thinks she wants the idolization from Art, but there’s nothing like being truly seen for who you are, and only Patrick seems to give her that. 

Something I think Tashi also likes about Art is that he’s easy to control and she loves to be in control. She’s good at getting people to do what she wants, particularly young Patrick and Art. Watching her manipulate situations and turn them both into putty in her hands was endlessly entertaining. I think she did it for her own pleasure but also to even the playing field between them. The boys came from privilege and were just having fun and goofing off playing tennis. But Tashi had to work for everything she had. This was her whole life, her opportunity. So she ups the stakes for them to make them feel a little more of the pressure she feels and to bring out the passion and fire she wants to see in the game. I loved seeing Zendaya in this powerful role and playing such a complex character.

The Patrick and Art relationship is fascinatingly modern. I was going to say there are homoerotic undercurrents between them throughout the film, but they aren’t even undercurrents. They’re pretty overt. The fascinating part is that the movie doesn’t seem interested in exploring their sexuality. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re gay or bisexual or straight or anything else. Neither one of them is bothered or scared off or upset by the closeness in their relationship, even when it crosses real boundaries. This throughline isn’t meant to be part of the main plot but more just an extra wrinkle in the story that adds another layer of tension, both dramatic and sexual, to the film. Again, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist just nail these performances and all the nuances involved.

Finally, the serve. What already has been and will continue to be known as THE moment from this film, Patrick’s serve to Art that indicates that he slept with Tashi. I’m just including this to call out the genius of this moment. I saw someone say that you want an audience to realize something will happen right before it does. If they realize too early, they will feel like the movie is slow or dumb. If they realize too late, they will be confused. But right before and they’ll feel smart and appreciate the movie even more. That’s exactly what this moment brings. Everyone in the theater knew exactly what was about to happen and was waiting with baited breath to see it play out. And seeing it happen was just as satisfying as knowing it was about to happen. Just a perfectly executed climax to a film. 

I think that’ll do it for this spoiler section. I hope you all enjoyed the movie and analyzing it afterwards as much as I did!

2024 Count: 9 seasons, 22 movies