DRAMA
“Challengers”
Premiere in cinemas on Friday 26 April
USA. 9 years. Director: Luca Guadagnino
With: ZendayaJosh O’Connor, Mike Faist
One evening 13 years ago, three young, promising tennis players had an unauthorized nachspiel in a hotel room during a tournament.
It was the nonchalant Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), the kind of guy who is good without trying. It was his best friend, the more malleable Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) – more dutiful than passionate. The guest in the room was Tashi (Zendaya), with whom both had just fallen head over heels in love.
Tashi is the Taylor Swift of the tennis world: a God-given athlete who is also genuinely interested in the business surrounding the sport. Something of a manipulator, it must be said, whose love for the sport will always be greater than the love she can muster for another human being.
See Zendaya talk about the intimate scenes in an interview with VG:
Tashi tells them to sit on either side of her on the edge of the bed. There will be scratching. Tashi, who has detected a homoerotic tension between Patrick and Art, relatively quickly lies back on the bed to watch the boys.
Tashi takes an early night. But not before she has promised to give her phone number to whoever wins the match the following day.
In New Rochelle, New York in 2019 we meet them again. Tashi and Art are married. He is doing well, has won most things except the US Open, they have a child together. Tashi fills the roles of trainer, lifecoachmom, mentor, guru and wife to him.
She is worried that Art is not hungry longer. And she can’t live with a man who isn’t as obsessed with winning as she is. The relationship between the two has been better. “I love you,” he says. “I know,” she says. Never a good sign.
Into this wormhole of ambition and resignation, Patrick then waltzes. Over the years, he has become a bohemian of the tennis industry, alternatively a bum; a poor freelancer who at the age of 31 is ranked as America’s 271st best player. Patrick is active on Tinder. But primarily to secure a roof over their heads for the night.
His presence foreshadows that what is now to be unfolded is a three-sided love tangle over 10 years long. One ménage à tennis. There have been many ups and downs on the way to this fateful meeting in New Rochelle. And the stage is set for another battle for Tashi’s favor. Again the question is: Who wins?
“Challengers” draws a great deal from what must be said to be an eternal specialty within American film, namely the highly respected genre sexy teen romance set in the competition world (it had particularly good conditions in the 1980s, but has never gone home and gone to bed).
The difference is that “Challengers” turns up the eroticism, and sees sexuality as a far more fluid and flexible thing than what was common just a few years ago. Also, that the film is kept in check by what can only be called a feisty, even rather pretentious director: Luca Guadagnino.
Guadagnino is not alone European, must know (Italian, to be exact). Which many people think is great in itself. He is also one authora film artist, with a distinct audiovisual style:
Close-ups of lit, enjoying faces. Beads of sweat flowing in slow motion. Vitality. Guadagnino cultivates youth and lasciviousness with an enthusiasm the undersigned has at times perceived as voyeuristic and vampiric. Whether he is the genius many want him to be, or an old pig, or an acceptable combination of the two things may be allowed to remain an open question for a while longer.
What is certain is that with “Challengers” he has for the first time made a film that is likely to become one commercial success. The script, by the American writer and playwright Justin Kuritzkes, is the most outrageously audience-friendly he has had his hands in. And the director has a supremely elegant hand with it:
Full control over the narrative, with its elegant jumps back and forth on the timeline. Full control over the use of music and sound, which is extremely important. The soundtrack itself is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. But Guadagnino is also keen to incorporate whole, or almost whole, pop songs into the plot.
It goes without saying that he has a burning interest in “his” actors. He adores the beautiful faces and the strong bodies. (Watching “Challengers” is a bit like going for a walk in Vigelandsparken.) And they have trained. Zendaya has terrifying power in her serves and strokes.
This is not “high quality” dramatic material. Guadagnino has gone for a hit, and is likely to get one. “Challengers” is, strictly speaking, kitsch – an erotic youth film made by a far above average gifted and distinctive filmmaker.
But masterfully told, with not just one, but two good punchlines, and a Zendaya who is in her imperial phase, both as an actress and all-round premise provider in popular culture.
