Drama
Rating: 4. Rating scale: 0 to 5.
”Challengers”
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Screenplay: Justin Kuritzkes. Starring: Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor. Length: 2 hours, 11 minutes (7 years). Language English. Cinema premiere 4/26.
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It’s always risky to put words like “the world’s sexiest” in a line if the person in question is going to appear in the movie right following. Sometimes it works. Like when Michelle Pfeiffer was described as the world’s most beautiful woman in “White Oleander” from 2002.
Or here, when tennis hopefuls Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) sit waiting to see “the world’s sexiest tennis player” and the equally young Tashi (Zendaya) steps onto the court on long legs with the racket like a sword in her hand . The black braid swings rhythmically over the back, the short white dress lifts in a light breeze. When she then hits the ball with cross-certain strength, the boys sit as if petrified. Tashi will be their destiny.
”Call me by your name”-regissören Luca Guadagnino’s new film is as fresh as the first bite of a piece of chewing gum. It is a strange hybrid between romantic drama, sex comedy, work of art and sports film that moves across time over twelve years. From the boys’ puppyish wooing of an amused superior Tashi – who has made a longer class journey and worked harder for her success than any of them – to the trio’s life as adults, when Art is an out-of-shape superstar and Tashi his impatient manager, trainer and wife. To get her husband in crisis up to speed, she signs him up for an anonymous “Challenger” competition. Patrick also competes there, now a bit of a loser in crumpled clothes who rides around from tournament to tournament. For the prize money, not the glory.
The triangle drama is doomed to flare up once more. Having done it before too, you understand following a while when the (intentionally or unintentionally?) rather disorienting time-clip puzzle starts to fall into place.
Guadagnino looks at the world with young eyes. He makes familiar environments like the tennis court, the dressing room, the luxury villa, the beach, even the parking lot look different, more desirable. The sky is barley blue, the grass is bright green and Zendaya’s dresses are crisply ironed, while she delivers snappy lines with a sleepy face and pursed lips like another 40s gangster. O’Connor is filthy rough as the provocateur, and Faist’s angelic exterior contrasts nicely with his surprising talent for fatal intrigue.
“Challenger” is not a romantic one drama that happens to take place in the world of tennis. Tennis permeates everything. The sexuality smells lightly of foot sweat and sports deodorant, dick sizes are compared, performance on the field is directly related to success in the bedroom and the matches themselves are lustily filmed from below, from above, from the point of view of the ball, from the crowd watching from left to right to left once more.
It is also on set that the emotions come out and the characters are defined. One is talented but lazy. A disciplined and ambitious. The one who has it all gets hurt early on and has to live through the others, creating a lame dynamic that can never find a satisfactory resolution.
It’s not easy to make a film regarding the sex lives of three sports fans where everyone loves everyone without it being soapy. Maybe that’s why the film is so cut up and jumpy in time and space, for fear of banality. It is doubtful whether it was necessary, although it probably contributes to Guadagnino bringing out the insolubility of the drama. The fact that he also finds a perfect final scene and final image speaks to the fact that the least uneven director knows what he is doing this time. “Call me by your name” might not have been a coincidence, following all.
See more. Three other movies with Zendaya: ”Malcolm & Marie” (2021), ”Spider-man: no way home” (2021), ”Dune part two” (2024).
Read more film and TV reviews in DN and more texts by Kerstin Gezelius
