Luca Guadagnino’s must-anticipated Challengers is framed around a single tennis match. It should be fairly low-stakes; it’s on the titular challenger circuit, where lower-ranking players fight it out to raise their profiles and higher-ranking players go to practice. But this game is different. This game is personal.

★★★★✰

“Tennis is a relationship.” Rising star Tashi (Zendaya) makes this statement fairly early on in Luca Guadagnino’s must-anticipated Challengers, as she critiques the performances of doubles partners Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Tennis, real tennis, is something of a transcendent experience to Tashi; for about 15 seconds in her last game, she tells the two boys, she and her opponent understood each other perfectly—”and so did everyone watching”.

This perfect, wordless communication is something the three leads seek continuously throughout the film, and it’s something that persistently evades them.

The love triangle has been the most publicised aspect of the film—and with good reason. The tension between the three leads is palpable, flowing between sweet, wonderfully tense and brutally cruel, with sex, tennis and power all rolled into one confusing, seductive beast. Guadagnino’s “love triangle where all corners touch” is far more compelling than the usual ‘who-will-she-pick’ narrative, and is self aware enough to both mock cliches of the device and elevate them.

Challengers is a beautiful film. Even the ugly, the painful, is drenched in a flattering light and filmed as though it were art in and of itself. Sweat drips onto the camera lens, distorting the frame; the tail lights of a car cut through a whirling storm of debris, creating an overwhelmingly sensual, tense atmosphere.

Physically, just behind the beauty of athleticism is the pain of obsession, the toll of aspiration. Sculpted arms are scattered with cuts and bruises, and attention is frequently drawn to the scar on Tashi’s knee, a constant reminder of her career-ending accident. Tennis is romanticised to a degree, of course, but it never looks easy.

There’s an extravagance in the cinematography that, while verging on it, never quite crosses the line into cheesy or overblown. Even those who find tennis abjectly boring will find it difficult to ignore the excitement and energy conveyed in the on-screen matches. We watch through a hand-held, shaky camera, tracking the players as they make their way onto the court; we watch the crowd’s reactions, heads turning left and right with just their expressions and the sound of tennis balls smacking off rackets to tell us how the game’s going; for a dizzying few seconds we watch from the perspective of the tennis ball itself, spinning on its axis as its lobbed back and forth.

Arguments are filmed like tennis matches too, swinging across from one side of a room to another as the players become more incensed. Many films talk about the perils of obsession, the search for perfection, the consequences of complete devotion to a profession. Challengers touches on this just enough, leaving it a constant underlying hum to the narrative. Everything is about tennis, from the decisions characters make in love and life to how they, and we as the audience, see their world.

The film spans a fairly long timeframe, and the cast does a commendable job in presenting their characters at different stages of life, from the beginning of their careers to their potential last hurrahs. They’re equally as plausible as 18-year-olds as they are 30-somethings, and the most drastic timeskips make clear the toll that the intervening years have had on them.

Attention to hair, makeup and wardrobe complement the physicality of their performances; in a subtly heartbreaking choice, Tashi’s wardrobe seems to mirror tennis-wear after her accident, another way for her to hold on, in some way, to this crucial aspect of her identity. 

Certain aspects of the narrative could have been more firmly followed. We learn early on that Patrick’s family is rich, that he doesn’t have to have a back-up plan like his peers. This glaring difference between them, though feels like more of an afterthought than a point of characterisation or plot. The topic is raised in conversation, but only as a surface-level observation.

Above all, Challengers is fun. The comedy perfectly balances with the more serious, dramatic themes, and the entire film jumps off the screen in an ecstasy of colour and movement. It’s not without its flaws; while watching in the moment feels electric, upon reflection the ending might seem a little neat, the conclusion too implausible. But it doesn’t matter, really. In the moment, you understand it perfectly.

The Verdict

Challengers lives up to its hype. Strong performances and excellent chemistry from the three leads, a quick-witted script, gorgeous cinematography and a thumping score make for an immersive two hours, no matter your interest level in the sport.

Words by Lucy Carter

Challengers is in cinemas from 26 April

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