Along with Denis Villeneuve, Yorgos Lanthimos and Jonathan Glazer, Luca Guadagnino is among the best of the “new school” masters of cinema. His explorations of human nature and sexuality through films like Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria are some of my absolute favorites of the last ten years, really using gorgeous backdrops and gifted actors to tell unique stories. Challengers is his latest, and to be completely honest, I had really low expectations for this one. It just seemed like one of those films that you watch, have no personal attachment to, and give a good grade for objectivity's sake. I’m just really preferential to Guadagnino’s more brutal pictures like the harrowing Bones and All. With all that introductory yapping out of the way, Challengers kicks ass.
For those of you that don’t really know what the film is about, here is a very quick synopsis before getting into spoilers. Two best friends named Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson find themselves in New Rochelle, New York playing what seems to be a pretty low-stakes tennis match. The prize is something like $7,000, a good amount for some D-leaguers, sure, but nothing too insane. The film explains why this match actually matters through a series of flashbacks to their high school, college, and post-grad years. The main recurring character aside from them in the flashbacks is Tashi Duncan, a world class tennis player and peer of theirs that they meet at the Junior US Open. They both hook up with her one night during all the competition, setting in motion the major thrust (ha) of the plot. Getting into spoilers now…
The best part of this movie, aside from some really intuitive camerawork from cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, is the neverending push-pull relationship among the three leads. After what was falsely advertised as a threesome, Patrick ends up beating Art one-on-one at the Junior US Open, and Tashi starts to date him as a result, as this was a side-competition she set up. You can tell that even as young men, they are playing as hard as they can for her affection. Patrick starts dating her, but Art and Tashi end up playing tennis together at the same college. So we get these snakey scenes of Art sowing seeds of doubt in Tashi and Patrick, essentially dirty macking so he can be with her. These scenes and others like it paint the stupid New Rochelle match in a different light. Art is a has-been professional resting on his laurels, Patrick is the scrappy underdog. Art is only in New Rochelle to crush some locals and get his confidence back, but Patrick is there and that fucks him up. On top of that, we learn that Tashi will leave him if he loses. Even more insane, we learn that the night before the match, Tashi fucked Patrick in the back of his car, and agreed to train him if he beats Art. They both get sweatier, angrier and more full of rage as the match carries on and the flashbacks continue to inform us with additional scathing context.
So basically, a normal and not traumatizing director would just make this a movie where two former friends fight via tennis. Maybe it would look like a serious version of 7 Days In Hell. Instead, he taps into what I want to coin as the “cuckaissance” a new cheat-code tool in filmmaking where revelations of cheating and interpersonal longing eat away at your heart and soul as you watch the film. It’s been used to great effect in Euphoria, Midsommar and Drive My Car, where one has to watch their lover be taken from them in slow motion and everyone in the audience thinks “wouldn’t let that shit happen to me though”. This film uses that tactic to great effect, and actually steps up the game by having two cucks competing for the affection of one girl, who loathes both of them. Art steals Tashi, Patrick hooks up with her in 2011, then it’s 2019 and Art pretty firmly has her, but then Patrick’s persistence leads to them angrily fucking. These two men never get to rest because they’re always fighting and bleeding over her, and she gets off on it. It smartly plays with concepts like complacency and excitement, and how these two concepts both power and destroy relationships.
At the end of the day, the film is a movie about three losers. Tashi is an injured almost-star who would probably destroy either of them in a match, but is forced to just be a coach. Art got the girl, but she hates him. Patrick is just a straight up, more traditional loser who has to sleep in his car because he can’t afford a hotel for the match. Even the ambiguous ending to the film shows that no one will ever really win this, but they all kind of win. It’s just such an interesting, energetic and horny film with a great techno soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, one of their best yet in my opinion. Definitely check out the Boyz Noize re-work as well.
This is a really great film that I highly recommend you go watch in a theater with a good crowd. We all really got to play the Greek Chorus there, shrieking, laughing and shaking our heads as the film continued to bring us to new lows that we didn’t expect. It continues to expand Luca’s range as a filmmaker, showing he can really mine romance, intrigue and drama out of any situation. Whether it’s gnarly and disturbed dancers or exasperated tennis players, he can find the core of their insecurities and fears and put them on full display for us to enjoy. The three leads in this film were outstanding, all of them really studied the motivations of the character closely and executed it in an outstanding way. One of them deserves an Oscar, my vote is for Mike Faist for his pitiful and smug performance as Art.
One other thing I want to note that I thought was funny was the overuse of brand names. I’m sure that this in no small part funded the film, but it actually oddly worked for the plot. Sports are mostly just distractions to sell us hamburgers and sugary drinks anyway. Kind of ironic considering that the athletes involved wouldn’t actually touch any of that shit with a ten-foot pole. I digress. Great work Luca and everyone involved.