Challengers (2024)

Luca Guadagnino | 2hr 11min

When aspiring tennis player Tashi first meets doubles partners Art and Patrick at the US Open, she lays out the metaphor at the centre of Challengers quite plainly. “Tennis is a relationship,” she romantically opines, binding opponents in perfect harmony. As long as they are locked in this combative back-and-forth, they see into each other’s minds in a way that no one else could possibly imagine, anticipating and performing manoeuvres with an impassioned, instinctive efficiency.

The pivotal Challenger match woven through Luca Guadagnino’s narrative is clearly the purest distillation of this ethos, telling a story of friends-turned-rivals that only those who bore witness to their journey might comprehend. Art and Patrick’s end goal here transcends merely winning the game – that would be far too simplistic a motive for men with as complex a shared history as theirs. In reality, there is another player here who has taken her place on the sidelines. Tashi may not have played professionally since her career-ending knee injury, but her impact on this match is just as impactful as Art and Patrick’s, becoming the third person in a love triangle that has spent thirteen years fluctuating between cold resentment and fervent desire.

With his laurels resting on the success of Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino is no stranger to exploring queer romance, and so it should be no surprise that the polyamorous, homoerotic relationship of Challengers remains so compelling throughout its lengthy runtime. From the moment Art and Patrick lay eyes on Tashi at the US Open as naïve 18-year-olds, they are instantly entranced by her vibrant passion and charm, locking their eyes on her side of the court while everyone else’s heads follow the ball. Later that evening, they are astonished to discover that she has accepted their invitation to their hotel room, and even more surprised when their truncated threesome brings their latent bisexuality to light. Whoever wins the junior singles final the next day will have her number, she promises in the aftermath, incidentally driving the first of many wedges between them. Patrick thus claims his prize and begins dating Tashi shortly after, though it is ultimately Art who marries and takes her on as his coach.

Between this fateful meeting in 2006 and their reunion at the Challenger event in 2019, Guadagnino energetically hops between timelines with incredible deftness, intercutting the years of their youth, the week leading up to their final game, and the climactic showdown itself. As a result, this rich formal structure uncovers hidden signifiers and motivations in Art and Patrick’s decisive match, from a subtle shift in the way Patrick serves the ball to his purposeful double faulting. The editing remains dynamic in the transitions too, gliding across eras through match cuts that seamlessly maintain the narrative’s brisk pacing, and elsewhere shifting between contrasting scenes that bear hidden connections. This is especially evident when Art and Patrick reunite in a steamy sauna before their Challenger game, where Guadagnino breaks up their oddly intimate argument with Tashi and Patrick’s brief liaison eight years earlier. In the years since, Patrick has maintained his fiery passion despite a meagre career while Art has burnt out on professional success, yet both still share a common belief in Tashi as the key to unlocking their true potential.

As for where Tashi sits relative to this broken brotherhood, Guadagnino’s opening scene paints a perfect picture, symmetrically aligning her with the net as the camera briskly dollies across the court to her position in the dead centre of the crowd. Challengers is not an extraordinarily beautiful film, but in moments like these he works in vivacious flourishes of style to vibrantly match the temperamental dynamic between Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor, as well as Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score of propulsive synths. During a pivotal argument between Tashi and Patrick, Guadagnino volleys his camera between both sides as if watching a game of tennis, and later an even greater breakdown unfolds in the middle of a storm furiously whipping leaves of loose paper around them.

Ultimately though, Guadagnino reserves his most invigorating visuals for the court, where Art, Patrick, and Tashi release their frustration through raw, physical power and skill. Between games, the camera will often patiently survey the field through panning and tracking shots, while during rallies we flinch as Guadagnino lets the ball fly right past the lens. By the time the match interlaced throughout Challengers reaches its final sets, he similarly lets it build to a cinematic apex, making for one of the most thrilling games of tennis put to film. Close-ups keenly observe sweat pour off faces and extreme low angles dramatically peer up from beneath the ground itself, but it is the extreme slow-motion photography which most triumphantly imbues this sequence with stylish tension, apprehensively drawing out split-second decisions and reactions. As this tightly edited sequence approaches its climax, Guadagnino uses Tashi as the division in a split screen and even attaches us to the disorientated point-of-view of the ball, throwing us onto the court like another participant in this match.

Tennis may be a relationship according to Tashi, though by capturing both aspects of these characters’ lives with the same primal passion, Guadagnino pushes this metaphor even further – tennis is sex, revelling in the exhilarating union of synchronised bodies and building to an explosive finish. When it comes to matters of carnal expression, who wins and loses is entirely inconsequential, with such concerns only leading to discontentment. For what is otherwise a relatively inexplicit film, Challengers intersects lust, love, and loathing with electrifying sensuality, fulfilling a mutual desire for intimate connection through relentless, heated competition.

Challengers is currently playing in cinemas.