Film review: ‘CHALLENGERS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

Tennis themed romantic comedy/ drama Challengers is the latest film for Call Me By Your Name director Luca Gaudagnino.  Like that film, it’s a slow burn exploration of passionate but fractured relationships.  Also, as with that languid and literate film, some will be utterly seduced by it while others may find it overlong and unfocused.

The film concerns a love triangle between tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) whose career was derailed by injury while on the College circuit, her husband whom she now coaches, tennis pro Art (Mike Faist) and Art’s former best friend, the struggling borderline washed-up tennis pro Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Having fallen out over their mutual infatuation with Tashi, Art and Patrick come face to face years later in a qualifying tournament.  As the on-court battle ensues, the film flashes back to the events of their tumultuous three-way relationship.

Throughout the film, Gaudagnino and scriptwriter Justin Kuritzkes deftly turn the heat up and down on the various versions of Tashi, Art and Patrick’s relationship across the years, including the implication of romance between Art and Patrick.  Few films in cinema history have jumped back and forth between so many different time periods. It’s hard to keep track of exactly which year we’re supposed to be in as, apart from their teen years, the characters generally look the same throughout.  Occasionally, it feels like that Seinfeld episode which keeps taking us back in time or even the tangled timeline of Christopher Nolan’s Memento.  To Guadagnino’s credit, in the end, despite all this flitting back and forth through the years, the story makes sense.

The success of a film like this lies in whether we care about the characters.  Despite reasonably strong performances from the three leads, especially Zendaya, they’re not exceptionally interesting people.  They’re reminiscent of the spoilt characters from one of the more thoughtful 80’s teen movies, just 10 to 15 years older.

For the most part it works pretty well as a sports film with some reasonably dynamic and well staged tennis action all choreographed to pulsating dance beats from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.  The actors look like they can genuinely play but alot of the excitement of the matches is generated through editing.  This is, of course, not meant to be a pure sports film, tennis is really a metaphor here for the competitive nature of the three characters’ relationship and Gaudagnino uses the rhythms of a tennis match effectively to convey that often intense personal contest.

Without the lush Italian seaside setting and highbrow cultural references, this film lacks the intoxicating style and class of Call Me By Your Name but Challengers is still smarter and wittier than most Hollywood rom-com/dramas.

Nick’s rating: ***1/2

Genre: Drama/Romance/ Comedy/ Sport

Classification: M.

Director(s): Luca Guadignino.

Release date: 24th Apr 2024.

Running time: 131 mins.

Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.

 

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