Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist are a love triangle in a tennis drama with “a lot of sport, a lot of wigs and a lot of sexual tension” – but not enough psychological intrigue.
Luca Guadagnino’s menage à tennis has a lot of sport, a lot of wigs and a lot of sexual tension. It has three amazingly talented actors, with Zendaya as one point in a shifting romantic triangle, and Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as the men competing for her affection. And Guadagnino’s previous dazzling depictions of romance include a gay teenager’s first love in (2017) and young cannibals in (2022), so the pieces are all in place here for an intense, erotic drama set in the world of professional tennis. Yet Challengers feels more like a film trying to be those things than one that achieves its goal. Perfectly pleasant to watch, it never becomes thoroughly engrossing, as the characters often slip from enigmatic to thinly-written. It isn’t bad, but it is underwhelming.
Challengers was meant to open the last September, but was pulled due to the actors’ strike. It’s easy to see why that made sense. The actors keep the film going, at times by sheer magnetic on-screen presence even when the screenplay lets them down.
The story begins in 2019, with former best friends Art (Faist, Riff in ) and Patrick (O’Connor, Charles as a young man in ) now professional players in slumps, entered in a second-tier Challenger tournament in suburban New York. Art, rich from his previous success, needs to restore his confidence. Patrick, who comes from a privileged family yet is obstinately sleeping in his car, needs a win to qualify for bigger tournaments. Zendaya, who proved how good she can be in Euphoria, plays Tashi, a teenage phenomenon as a player until she was injured. Now she is Art’s wife and coach, but it doesn’t sound great for them when he says “Hey, I love you” and she coolly says “Yeah, I know”.
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The film flashes back and forth in time, revealing their tangled history while heading toward the inevitable final match between the two rivals. That structure sounds promising, but here it simply slows the momentum. The scenes set 13 years before, when Tashi and the men meet at a juniors tournament, are the liveliest, with the actors at ease in the roles. Patrick is the charmer with a roguish smile, which O’Connor uses to good effect throughout the film. His character also has the most irreverent lines, adding a dash of humour. Art is the sensitive, understanding type, but Faist shows that he’s not a pushover. Zendaya is especially nuanced when playing the younger Tashi, who seems like the most wholesome teenager around, but is actually daring and wily. When the men invite her to their shared hotel room, she goes.
Woow