Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist, Hailey
Gates
Game Set Match meets Jules Set Jim in Luca Guadagnino's
Challengers, a tennis drama that puts the love in love triangle. It's invested in
the action on the court and the drama off it in a way we haven't seen
since the hey day of Ron Shelton, but the sports movie it most closely
resembles is Oliver Stone's barmy American Football drama
Any Given Sunday. Guadagnino out-Stones Stone, shooting the sport of tennis in a
dazzling variety of ways. It's at times intoxicating but often comes
across as pretentious, as though the filmmaker neither appreciates nor
understands the sport and simply wants to try every technique at his
disposal. But it's always entertaining.
It's no surprise when Guadagnino homages the famous shot from
Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train in which Robert Walker
stares straight ahead while surrounded by tennis spectators whose heads
pan left and right as they follow the on court action. Here it's
Zendaya's Tashi Duncan who occupies the Walker position. Everyone
else in her crowd is riveted by a match between Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), a superstar in danger of becoming a has been, and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), a lowly player who never was.
Unlike the rest of the crowd, Tashi is less than enamoured by these two
athletes. Art is her husband but the spark has gone from their marriage,
largely because Tashi can't help but view him as a loser now that his
career is on a downward spiral (speaking of downward spirals, the film
features an absolutely banging score by Trent Reznor and
Atticus Ross). Patrick was once her lover and Art's best friend,
and through flashbacks we see how the trio met as teenagers, competing
in both tennis and tonsil hockey, and the troubles that befell them in
the following years, including Tashi's own career coming to an end due
to a knee injury. 13 years after their initial encounter the three are
awkwardly reunited when Art follows Tashi's advice to drop down a level
and play a minor tournament in which Patrick is also competing.
For all the flashy visuals - which ironically come courtesy of
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, a cinematographer best known for his
collaborations with "slow cinema" icon Apitchatpong Weerasethakul – this
is a movie that's all about performance, both of the athletes at the
centre of its story and of the three young stars embodying them. The
film is at its most compelling when Guadagnino sets his spinning camera
to rest and focusses on some intimate moment between the key players.
Like many graduates of the Disney school of child acting, Zendaya has an
ability to do a lot with very little, and here she plays her cards close
to her chest, keeping us guessing about Tashi's motivations throughout.
We're never quite sure how Tashi really feels about Art or Patrick, and
we can't trust anything she says. The character probably truthfully
doesn't know herself.
Guadagnino casts Faist and O'Connor against type and reaps considerable
rewards. Broadway musical star Faist is given the role of the quiet,
withdrawn Art while O'Connor, known for playing sensitive young men in
British dramas, is the brash, confident Patrick. Like Zendaya's Tashi,
we're unsure if either of these men is presenting their true self in any
given moment. Patrick is a self-confessed, unapologetic asshole while
Art presents himself as a "nice guy," but the truth is probably
somewhere in between.
Tashi's injury leads her initially to become Art's coach and
subsequently his lover and wife. While the movie never explicitly
highlights its racial dynamic, it's impossible to overlook how a woman
of colour has had to settle for living in the shadow of two white men,
one of whom seems intent on throwing away his privilege while the other
has never lived up to it. I imagine women of all races will find Art and
Patrick infuriating while sympathising with Tashi's predicament.
What Guadagnino doesn't seem to understand about sports movies is that
you need someone to root for in the climactic duel. While Tashi, Art and
Patrick are all thoroughly compelling characters, none of them are
remotely likeable. This makes the final act, which leans into the
traditional sports movie trope of the big showdown, somewhat redundant.
There's an ambiguous ending that bears more than a passing similarity to
the final scene of Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, and we're supposed to leave the cinema debating what it all means.
But it's the only part of this equally exhilarating and exasperating
film that feels underwhelming, like a match called off because of rain
that we'll never get to see resolved.
Challengers is in UK/ROI
cinemas from April 26th.
