*This article contains a number of spoilers, so read at your own risk.*
On April 22, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers (screenplay by Justin Kuritskes) hit the movie theaters. The film follows talented tennis players Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’ Connor) over the course of 13 years as they end up tangled in a strange love triangle which is also related to tennis. Guadagino’s captivating visuals, intriguing lead performances, and a rocking club beat soundtrack by Trent Rexnor and Atticus Ross make for a very interesting watch.
The movie opens on childhood best friends turned tennis rivals Art and Patrick in a tennis match, the score 0–0. Tashi and Art are married, with Tashi also being his coach. She has signed him up for this challenger tournament to help him regain his confidence before the US Open. We later find out that Patrick is living out of his car and playing these matches to earn money.
As the film goes along, it switches between the present — in this case, 2019 — and the past in order to show how things got to where they are. We find out that Art and Patrick both had a crush on Tashi, and she agreed to date whoever won their match the day after they met. Patrick wins, so he and Tashi start dating long-distance as he’s traveling and she’s at college with Art. Art and Patrick stop being friends after Patrick and Tashi get in a fight before one of her games, Tashi tears a ligament in her knee, and this injury ruins her career. She goes on to coach and marry Art as his career grows and they become a tennis power couple while Patrick is essentially left in the dust. A real doozy, right?
This quick nature of the plot never stops or slows. Blink and you’ll miss elements that show up at different points in the film for symbolism, like how a large brand poster of Tashi and Art on the side of a building falls down to cover up Art’s face during the storm where Tashi and Patrick meet up after several years of not seeing each other. It’s small details like this that really emphasize how important it is to keep in mind why every scene is the way it is. It also means that on a second or third watch you can better keep track of the specifics and how they drive the story further.
There is a decent amount of sexual content in the film, but it never detracts from the plot because it’s necessary to the story. Everything is intertwined and really contributes to why the characters play tennis, especially Tashi’s motives for taking an interest in Art and Patrick in the first place. Her obsession with tennis never changes, and her whole reason for dating/marrying either of them is for the sake of tennis. In this movie, love and tennis are interchangeable because love is what makes tennis interesting. The more layers to a relationship, the more intriguing the game is to observe.
The dialogue throughout the film moves very quickly. The actors don’t take pauses between lines, and often, halfway through a conversation, the intense music comes back to underscore the dialogue. Not just the actions but the words, too, are a game. The characters are in a constant tennis match against eachother because in this world love is tennis. This intensity is built upon by the quick-paced music that underscores majority of the dialogue to uplift it. There’s nothing like hearing a whole theater gasp as Art tells Patrick, “I’m just stopping by, man. This is where you live. And it’s most certainly where you’re going to die,” while dance-y club music intensifies and underscores his monologue.
Additionally, Guadagino’s eye for visuals creates scenes with that perfectly match the characters’ feelings. The tennis courts in particular use a variety of angles to achieve the point, including close-up shots, faraway shots, filming from underneath the tennis courts, and even putting the camera into the ball as Art and Patrick hit it across the court. Guadagino worked with cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom to create these fascinating scenes. The two also worked together on the popular film Call Me By Your Name (2017), which includes vastly different yet equally stunning visuals. The way the team is able to create such unique pictures and give each of the actors their appropriate moments, tied in with the specificity discussed earlier shows how much care was put in to crafting each scene.
Overall, Challengers is a blast and a half. It’s not every day you watch a movie about a tennis love triangle with a rocking club beat soundtrack. I don’t think there was any sort of moral to this film or specific lesson that the audience is supposed to learn. It’s a film that’s really enjoyable to watch because of all the little details and how much fun it seems like the people involved were having while making it. Challengers allows you to really live in the movie with the characters and the stunning visuals that accompany them. When it boils down to it, this movie is just about tennis. Game, set, match, Guadagnino.