A love triangle framed by a rectangle, Challengers is almost comical in its sensuality.
The movie opens—and this is even before the MGM studio logo appears—with drippingly sweaty close-ups of its two main male characters: tennis pros Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), locked in a fervent match. The third wheel—though it becomes clear fairly soon that she’s also this trio’s driving force—is Tashi (Zendaya), a onetime phenom whose career has been cut short by injury. Yet sparks aren’t limited to these main figures. In an early shot of Art being stretched out by his trainer, their faces are half an inch away, holding an intense gaze. When Patrick, short on cash, tries to sweet talk his way into a free hotel room later on, he does so by bringing his smile similarly close to the desk clerk. In Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, 2018’s Suspiria), anyone is likely to make out at any moment.
As the movie traces this love triangle via flashbacks to their initial meeting and then through relationship tangles over the years—all interspersed with present-day scenes from that increasingly high-stakes match between Art and Patrick—it’s the uncommonly sophisticated screenplay, by first-time feature screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, that keeps things from devolving into silliness. Brilliant in terms of its overall structure, Kuritzkes’ script also manages crackerjack individual scenes that stack up one upon the other, like little chamber dramas within a larger opus. (I’m partial to a sauna showdown between Art and Patrick.)
Of course, much of the credit should also go to the uniformly excellent cast, who relish in the sensuality, but never at the expense of crafting deeply human characters. O’Connor, whom I’ve previously appreciated in Netflix’s The Crown and Autumn de Wilde’s Emma., emphasizes Patrick’s physicality; notice in the infamous churro scene (which I won’t spoil) the way he lets crumbs of cinnamon stick in his beard, dusting a smile tailor-made to excuse bad behavior. Faist, so good in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, has the less forceful but perhaps trickier part, as Art changes the most over the years—something Faist makes room for while never abandoning the essential softness at the heart of the character. And then there is Zendaya, wearing a merciless, pitiless expression in almost every scene as the thwarted yet controlling Tashi; you can even see it in the devilish grin she wears in that early shot of her face, framed between Art and Patrick’s faces, that became an instant meme. There’s a later moment when Art, in a moment of indecision, asks Tashi how she will look at him if he makes a certain choice. “Just like this,” she replies, and the blankness Zendaya wears while answering is essentially an emotional torture device.
If this sounds like a film built around cruelty, that’s hardly the case, as Challengers winds its way toward a perfect ending that works not only as a sports movie, but also for a romance. The finale clarifies where—among these three—there might be something akin to genuine, relational love. This tender core may be easy to miss amidst all the sweatiness—propelled by a deliciously clubby score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which matches the eclectic, energetic editing and camerawork employed during the various matches—but it’s undeniably there in the movie’s sublime final shot. When the credits roll, you’ll feel the need to towel off, for a variety of reasons.
(5/23/2024)