Boiling over with its sweaty, intense and frenzied tennis matches, and a pulsating EDM score, “Challengers” oozes sexuality and makes tennis into a game of competing egos.
The film stars Zendaya and Mike Faist as Tashi Duncan and Art Donaldson, a married coach-player duo competing in a challenger match — one of the lowest levels of pro tournament — in an attempt to revitalize Art’s faltering career. Their main opponent becomes Art’s past doubles partner and Tashi’s former lover, Patrick Zweig, igniting a whirlwind trip into the past and an examination of their shared history.
The tennis matches in “Challengers” are absolutely captivating. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography captures the motion of the ball in increasingly novel ways and focuses on sweaty close-ups of Art and Patrick. It brings back a formalism reminiscent of the camera placements and editing in Nicolas Roeg’s “Don’t Look Now” that has been missing from mainstream movies for too long and keeps the game from becoming a stale back-and-forth.
What makes the match truly interesting to watch unfold over the course of the movie is the sexual tension between the two male leads as they compete not only for the affection of Tashi, but for each other. This tension is established early on in a flashback to when they were teenagers, where Tashi not only kisses both boys but gets them to make out with each other, establishing a strong homoeroticism that underpins the match and adds a dimension of combative masculinity to it, as both are essentially fighting to be the “man” on the court.
Director Luca Guadagnino, who is gay himself, is no stranger to themes of same-sex attraction, having previously directed “Call Me by Your Name.” In “Challengers,” Art and Patrick form a unique, complex dynamic that audiences must try to piece together.
The score by Oscar-winning duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross sounds like something that would be heard at a club instead of the soundtrack for a tennis film, with the end credits song “Compress/Repress” containing lyrics where the singer describes his desire to be touched.
It is through the score that the court is cemented as a place where mutual desires converge, and the competitors become two dancers sharing a wordless dialogue with each other.
The best asset of the score is that it ultimately brings the themes of the film to the forefront with its presence, serving as an example of how filmmakers can use their score to emphasize the subtext of a work.
A small point of contention with the film is that none of the performances really stand out. Zendaya, O’Connor and Faist are not as captivating as they could be as a trio. They seem to collectively only have two emotions between them — cocky self-assurance and sad vulnerability — leaving a small tinge of disappointment regarding an otherwise flawless film.
O’Connor and Faist compensate for this through their physical performances on the court, selling the emotional gravitas behind their duel. But the script sadly does not afford Zendaya such an opportunity to compensate with a physicality in her performance.
“Challengers” is a fun start to the summer movie season and will be sure to grab the attention of young moviegoers looking for something cool and refreshing amid the heat of the same tired formulas.
