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Challengers (2024)
  
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Directed
by:
Luca Guadagnino |
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COUNTRY
USA |
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GENRE
Drama/Sports/Romance |
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NORWEGIAN TITLE
Challengers |
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RUNNING
TIME
131 minutes |
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Produced
by:
Amy Pascal
Luca Guadagnino
Zendaya
Rachel O'Connor |
Written by:
Justin Kuritzkes |
Review
Fashionably and enticingly structured
and edited, with a magnificent score by Trent Reznor and Atticus
Ross, Challengers is a love triangle with hints of
psychological thriller set in the world of professional tennis. The
film offers a more faithful representation of the workings of the
sport itself than we've probably ever seen in international cinema,
even though its heart is not really in the game of tennis but in the
power struggles and attractions between its three main characters:
retired player and now no-nonsense coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her
husband and multiple Slam winner Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and his
former friend and rival Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), now battling
it out on the Challenger Tour, the lower echelon of professional
tennis. Director Luca Guadagnino (Call
Me by Your Name) is again interested in exploring
atypical sexual affinities and liaisons, and in Challengers,
the eroticism has a transactional and competitive quality to it –
these people are never able to let go of the various bonds they have
put upon themselves. It's a fascinating character study with
considerable depth and potential, even if the end result may be a
little too cold and calculated – and hardly as sexy as the camera
seems to think.
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