I’ll confess to going into Challengers not knowing what my reaction would be. The cast and trailer certainly intrigued me, without question. On the flip side, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has yet to fully land for me. I find myself often at arm’s length from his work, for one reason or another. So, it was quite the shock to discover that not only is Challengers Guadagnino’s best film to date, but a 2024 highlight. Dramatic, hilarious, intense, and uber sexy, this is one of the most enjoyable times you can have in a theater. This flick has the goods, from top to bottom.
Challengers might be one of the sexiest movies ever made. That’s saying something too, considering this isn’t a work filled with sex scenes. There’s just sex dripping from every frame of celluloid, and it’s often on the minds of one or all of the characters on screen. A love triangle unlike one we’ve seen to date, this is creative, entertaining, and just might get you pregnant. When it ends, your heart will be racing, your eyes will be wide, and you’ll kind of be in awe of what you just saw.
Bouncing back and forth between time periods, this is the story of tennis players Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). In the present, Tashi is married to Art, a champion pro currently on a losing streak, while Patrick is washed up and just barely hanging on. Years prior, Tashi was a tennis prodigy about to change the sport, with Art and Patrick best friends a level below. A shared interest in her and a mutual flirtation during an amateur tournament sets everything into motion.
After a gruesome injury ruins her career before it even began, Tashi marries Art and becomes his coach. Determined to get him back to his winning ways, she has him entered into a Challengers tournament, expecting an easy win. Lo and behold, a basically homeless Patrick has also entered, needing a quick payday. Matched up in the finals, with Tashi observing, all three are thinking back to the tangled web they’ve each gotten themselves into. I don’t want to say what happens, but there are surprises, a lot of fun, high tension, and a fiery sexiness that exudes from every moment.
Zendaya, along with Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, sets the screen ablaze. She’s funny and intense, with a biting quality that suggests she’s always in control. There’s a look on her face both when plans are going well and when plans go awry that is just a delight to witness. Frankly, Zendaya has never been better. Mike Faist impressed in West Side Story, but there’s so much more on display here. Especially in the earlier timeline, he’s the heart and soul of the film. Josh O’Connor is the comic highlight, playing a bit of a scumbag, but in a way you can’t help but find lovable. They all have amazing chemistry with each other, though Faist and O’Connor in their younger years are the absolute highlight. This is basically a three-hander, though there are tiny parts for Darnell Appling, Nada Despotovich, A.J. Lister, and others.
Director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes combine to make this flick an absolute blast. Guadagnino and Kuritzkes are very much on the same page. The former lets loose more than we’ve ever seen from him behind the camera, though always with a sense of style. The same goes for cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom as well as composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In fact, this is an upper echelon score from Reznor and Ross. As for Kuritzkes’ script, it focuses so well on this trio that you’d follow them anywhere. The sexiness, the humor, and the ultimate resolution, it’s all handled damn near perfectly. One can argue that the movie runs a little long, at over two hours and ten minutes, but the pacing is pretty much relentless.
Awards-wise, Challengers is an X-factor and could be too cool for the Academy, but all bets seem to be off these days. So, look at Zendaya in Actress and Kuritzkes in Best Original Screenplay as possibilities. Faist and O’Connor are both deserving of Best Supporting Actor attention, while if everything breaks right, it could be hovering around the bottom of the Best Picture lineup. Time will tell, but it’s certainly deserving.
Challengers is one of my favorite films of the year so far. It’s an absolute winner. Tennis is done justice, love triangles are done justice, and this is just star power on full display. All three of the actors should be superstars, but with Zendaya already there, this could shoot her into the stratosphere. I was not expecting to love this movie, but I love it with all my heart. This is potentially going to become a favorite steamy flick for some audiences, but it’s just a hoot in all regards. Ace!
SCORE: ★★★1/2
