Game, Set, Love: ‘Challengers’ Review
Late April’s Challengers is a romantic drama with Zendaya the breakout star from Euphoria and Dune who stars in an uncharacteristically darker, intense departure from her more traditional characters. She stars opposite Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor as two professional tennis players and love interests who ultimately dissolve their friendship to try and date Zendaya’s character Tashi. The film ultimately feels unique and fresh in today's cinema.
The film primarily takes place at the Phil’s Tire Town Challengers Tournament, a qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open. Art Donaldson played by Mike Faist is going for a Career Grand Slam with the U.S. Open being the only tournament he hasn’t won. Art is coming off of an injury and is trying to regain his confidence after a series of losses with the help of his wife Tashi Donaldson played by Zendaya. A former tennis player herself who had to give up her career due to injury, she resents her husband for his injury’s rapid healing and lives vicariously through his international tennis success. Tashi signs him up for the Challengers tournament, a tournament for lower-ranked players to earn a wild card spot in the U.S. Open, and she tells him that he can either quit or start working harder than ever before. She says he needs playing time against lower-ranked people that he should have no issue beating. But, in the tournament finals, he is pitted against Patrick Zweig played by Josh O’Connor. Patrick is the former best friend of Art and ex-boyfriend of Tashi. He and Patrick had been doubles partners for most of their childhood and all through high school as the duo “fire and ice”. But that all changes when both young men, in a high school flashback, see Tashi play tennis and agree that she is the hottest woman they have ever seen. Both love interests pursue her and she says that she will date the person who wins their 1 on 1 tennis match; 13 years before their emotional showdown at a seemingly meaningless tournament.
The film bounces around the story: fading in and out between the period around the first tennis match for Taji’s affection when Patrick beats Art and begins dating Taji which is juxtaposed to the present when Art is married to Taji. Taji is the main focus of the film. The plot of this film relies on our collective cultural knowledge of the anti-hero and shows the audience the story from the manipulative character’s perspective. Within that, the film relies on the audience picking up on the parallels between each of the characters. Every character involved in this film is a terrible person but that is what makes this such an interesting film. Everyone in the love triangle is manipulating everyone else. For example, how Art manipulates Taji and Patrick’s relationship into crumbling is similar to how Taji manipulates Art into continuing his tennis career despite his evident growing dissatisfaction with the sport.
The rising action in this film is well structured. The relatively fast pace made the 131-minute runtime bearable and the repeated use of flashbacks was a unique way to tell a relatively straightforward story. Whereas most films would tell the story in a linear plot-driven format the film chooses to obfuscate certain details such as the particularities of Art’s injuries or Patrick’s fall from grace in the tennis world. The unique structure helps heighten the intensity of the climax by adding layers and layers of twists to make the brief glimpses we see of the final match all the more enthralling.
One of the best aspects of this film is the cinematography. However, there are some questionable choices, such as the first-person P.O.V shots of Art and Patrick and the P.O.V shots of the ball going across the court, creating a dizzying effect that was somewhat nausea-inducing. For the most part, the cinematography was a creative interpretation of a Classical Hollywood style. The usage of clean one-shots for the characters helped isolate the actor and their emotions as well as symbolize the distance the characters feel from one another. In the flashbacks, the camera often encompasses the three principles when all three are in the honeymoon phase but as soon as things start turning vitriolic between Patrick and Art the camera instead uses one shots that then permeate throughout the rest of the story.
Furthermore, the cinematography often centralizes Zendaya’s character as she watches the two love interests, Patrick and Art, fight for her. Taji is often centered around Zendaya’s character and her gaze is her weapon of power. In the first glimpse of the tire town match, when Taji looks towards Patrick rather than her husband Art is visibly annoyed by this action. At other times, the camera has a dead-on 90-degree shot of a crowd whose gaze is towards the players whom we the audience are replaced. In other words, in the shots of the crowd we are Art and Patrick fighting over Taji’s love as we watch her watching us.
The color palette is wonderfully vibrant which adds a lot of layered visuals into the mise en scène. Particularly in the wardrobe of the cast. In the flashback sequences, when Taji is still in her career she wears simplistic patterns with bright solid colors whereas when she is coaching Art or in front of an audience she opts for a similar color palette but with a more elaborate silhouette. It reflects a deeper insecurity and a need to portray herself as a composed warrior figure throughout the film. As the climactic tennis match wears on her emotional armor breaks down more and more. At first, she sits in the stands composed as a statue of dignity and honor while inside she’s crumbling deep inside.
Zendaya’s role in the film speaks to her skills as an actress. She can take a manipulative character and not only make her relatable but also human. She has this almost innate urge to self-destruct and destroy every relationship. She pushes away both Patrick and Art in self-centered ways. Her drive to make Art better is what causes trouble in their relationship. Despite the film’s focus on the relationship between Art and Patrick, Taji is the primary focus. Frequently she dominates the frame blocking out the negative space of the shot especially when sharing it with Art. With that is Zendaya’s intensity. Her war cries during matches, her cold demeanor surrounding her opponents, and how hard she trains with Patrick all seem like natural means to an end for this character. Zendaya portrays that gladiator demeanor that few student-athletes possess.
Ultimately, the film has a well-structured story with an intriguing central relationship. The film has a strong directorial voice as fans of Luca Guadagnino will be accustomed to. Fans of his previous films Call Me By Your Name will like the homoerotic relationship between Art and Patrick whereas fans of Bones And All will appreciate the melodramatic relationship drama at the center of the film. The twists and turns of the film work on an emotional level while also showing the audience how low people will go to ensure success. The film’s consistent use of flashbacks is a unique way of turning what would normally be a straightforward story into something more layered. Seeing how the characters became who they are at Phil’s Tire Town Challengers Tournament through brief glimpses rather than telling the story in a straightforward narrative was a unique editing choice. Cutting away from the pivotal match and adding context with every flashback raises the stakes immensely.
The film has a lot to say about how sports and sports media have pushed a narrative that one has to put everything they have into a sport no matter the cost. The film often emphasizes the mental aspect of tennis and the metagame within Tennis as something akin to a war of attrition. In the tennis match sequences, the player's grunts are heavily emphasized in the audio mix while the camera’s close-ups and slow-motion photography emphasize the physical exertion of the players through their serves, hits, and falls. The arc of Art going from a hungry competitor to being a miserable tennis star reflects the dehumanizing nature of the sports media industry that pressured him into becoming a hollow shell of his former self. In the beginning, he is just as hungry as Tasha but by the end, he seems empty- that is until Patrick and Tashi both pressure him into becoming just as hungry as he once was. There are a lot of dualities in this film; not everyone is who they seem at first.
Overall, this is a one-of-a-kind film whose technical aspects are unexpectedly daring and encapsulates a realistically sordid love affair. Zendaya gives one of the best performances of her career in a role that emphasizes a dark side we haven’t seen before. The rollercoaster third act makes for a compelling resolution to a near-Shakespearean drama.
