Review: ‘Challengers’ is a seductive, tense drama anchored by a stellar trio
“Challengers” is a tense, sexy thriller from director Luca Guadagnino that oozes chemistry thanks to all three leads.
Love triangles on their own are compelling enough. The will-they-won’t-they, the betrayal, the competition of it all.
Setting a love triangle in the uber-competitive world of professional tennis takes things to a whole new level, as lines are blurred between romance and contest, coach and partner, and friend or foe. In this world, affection isn’t won through grand gestures of love or passion, it’s earned through tactical strategy and Grand Slam titles.
But don’t be mistaken, “Challengers” still has plenty of love and passion – it’s a tense, sexy thriller from director Luca Guadagnino that oozes chemistry thanks to all three leads.
Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) are teenage tennis prodigies – champion doubles partners, as well as each others’ biggest singles competition. But they’re also best friends, which means any on court matchup between the two has never been anything more than friendly competition. Off the court, though, it’s easy for outsiders to get the impression the two may be more than friendly with each other, thanks to the closeness of their friendship and the intimacy of their victory celebrations.
But that friendly competition heats up when Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) enters the picture. The world’s next big tennis star, Tashi is a fellow teen prodigy already loaded up with endorsement deals and set on a full-ride to Stanford.
Tashi is a tactician on and off the court, and within one night with the two teenage boys thirsting over her, she’s set the stage for a lifetime of competition between Art and Patrick. Winner gets her.
The 131-minute runtime follows the trio across nearly a decade and a half, jumping between present day, college memories and all the tournaments in between in Art and Patrick’s grudge match for Tashi.
Jumping between various timelines can be hit or miss – especially when it’s as many as four different moments in time. But “Challengers” excels in this area by making each of the different periods equally compelling to the next, preventing one from becoming a preferred storyline. Each moment feeds into the larger plot between Tashi, Art and Patrick, filling in valuable gaps to set the stage for the tense conclusion.
Zendaya, Faist and O’Connor each deliver stellar performances, channeling a range of emotions from passion to envy, charm and, of course, sensuality. Faist and O’Connor transform from blubbering, starstruck simps – let’s be honest, who wouldn’t act that way if Zendaya showed them the slightest interest – to cut-throat enemies spending their entire lives trying to one-up the other.
Zendaya’s take on Tashi balances the allure of her personal life with the cold, calculating competitiveness of her on the court life. The way each of the trio thinks about this relationship is so analytical, as not one of them can comprehend life or a relationship without tennis at the center. Patrick’s claim that Art is “playing percentage tennis,” waiting for him to screw up his relationship with Tashi, is the perfect summary of the entire triangle.
Guadagnino’s constant build of tension works well here, but on a few occasions the extended close ups linger just a bit too long. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score expertly sets the pace, bouncing from electric club music to classical, Spanish, and more, as the undertone of music throughout the film acts as a strong guide. Another sign of Guadagnino’s balance comes in the tennis sequences, which maintain their excitement and never overstay their welcome. Smart editing with creative camerawork and POV effects deliver new takes on what could be weaker moments between the off the court drama, instead adding a lot of necessary and exciting emotional development between points in the tennis action.
From its first trailer, “Challengers” set the tone as an extremely sexy and extremely tense, convoluted drama – and Guadagnino’s latest delivers exactly that, in an edge-of-your-seat thriller that serves up a grand slam.
Star Rating: 4.5 out of 5
“Challengers” releases in theaters April 26, 2024.