Challengers: Movie Review

Cast: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist
Director: Luca Guadagnino

There are plenty of bodies on show in Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino's latest film.

From sweat dripping from foreheads to glistening skin and writing bodies and close ups, it's a film that revels in its horniness from beginning to end, but one which starts to falter and stutter in its final strait.

While the basis of Challengers seemingly follows a traditional sports underdog and rivalry story, Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes are less interested in following a formula and more interested in perverting the threesome of Patrick (O'Connor), Art (Faist) and Tashi (Zendaya) into something that more resembles the psychology of obsession.

And that obsession once again translates into Guadagnino fixating on bodies, faces and food as he's done in previous films.

Set against the backdrop of a seemingly loaded final match at a tennis challengers game, the movie zips back and forth between timelines, filling out the friendship and eventual rivalry between Patrick and Art when they encounter Tashi's destined for fame player. 

But in the first of many clichés deployed during Challengers, the film follows a predictable path of a woman coming between two friends despite some flourishes of deviation. There's no denying Challengers' stylish flair, and its commitment to looking the best a film ever has - even while deploying flashes of Hardcore Henry in its gameplay.

Yet at moments, the bombast and over use of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' hi-energy techno laid over speeches, proves to be too much for Challengers, and points more to a style over substance approach that's been thrown down.

The film is much more effective when it lets the story take the lead, and lets its actors prove their worth. A sequence where Zendaya's Tashi simply sits back and watches her powerplays unfold say more than overly-heavy edits and OST do; and both O'Connor and Faist bring much depth and lived-in dynamics to their relationship as their cliched characters follow their own paths. (One's a loose cannon,  the other's a straight gun - all very familiar fare, but with subtlety, it shines).

With Guadagnino's fetishisation of his subjects leading much of Challengers, there's plenty in this swirling circle of lust, tennis and relationships to grab onto initially.

It's just once those have been taken on, there's little else worthy of depth and consideration to cling onto - and while Zendaya, Faist and O'Connor give it their all, in comparison to previous heights, this latest from Guadagnino feels more empty and hollow than it should - despite its sexiness and zing.