Challengers is Slutty, Intense, Magnificent

Why is tennis so damn sexy? Is it the outfits? Is it the heat from the overbearing sun beating down on sweaty, outstretched bodies? Is it the phallic nature of bouncing balls and swinging racquets? Maybe it comes from the innate tension created from the space between opponents. Or, to quote Zendaya's Tashi Duncan in Challengers, is it because tennis is not a game at all, “it's a relationship"?

I was hesitant to watch Challengers in the same way that I'm hesitant to watch Babygirl. Sex sells and Hollywood is not above releasing an overtly sexual movie with little cinematic merit. They did it with the Fifty Shades trilogy. They did it with Anyone But You. Highly sexual movies are a sure-fire way to pad a studio's earnings because of their easy, moneymaking formula: give them sex and they will come. When I saw the trailer for Challengers, with the threesome scene at its centre, I assumed that this movie was nothing more than a sex-fuelled cash grab from Amazon-MGM. I forgot about one thing: the director.

Luca Guadagnino and his longtime cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, go all out in Challengers. They shoot a tennis court from every possible angle: over the court, under the court; from the player's perspective, from the ball's perspective; tracking shots along the net; low angles, high angles. Although Call Me By Your Name had a beautiful setting and Bones and All had a unique story, Challengers shows Guadagnino and Mukdeeprom at their technical zenith. They use a variety of camera angles and movements not because they want to see what will work. They do so because they know that they will work. This is the difference between hypothetical experimentation and confident execution.

Meanwhile, working with another frequent collaborator, editor Marco Costa, Guadagnino cuts this movie like a knife. I don't mean that as a cliche simile. I mean literally. The cutting, especially in some of the tennis matches, is so swift, exact and final that it's like watching a master samurai wield his blade. The urgent rhythm of these cuts is staggering. But that's not to say that this movie has a million cuts in each scene, for Guadagnino knows exactly the right time to slow the cutting down and have scenes where there are almost no cuts. Again, this is not experimentation for experimentation's sake; this is a true auteur that knows exactly how he wants to present each scene to get the maximum emotion out of each frame.

You can buy fashion, but style is eternal. Guadagnino has style in spades, and it is all on display in Challengers. There is one shot that I must draw attention to. Guadagnino shoots an empty hallway, until Tashi dissolves into the shot. I mean, come on! Implications of this choice aside (with the dissolve reflecting Tashi's feelings over her actions in the previous scene), to dissolve an actor into a shot is freaking genius. I know I'm in love with a movie when I'm watching in my living room and I start shouting at the screen. At this moment in Challengers, I was screaming like a tennis player that just aced a game point.

And then there's the acting. At the centre is Zendaya, the love interest of both Josh O'Connor's Patrick and Mike Faist's Art. I don't know what it is about Zendaya that makes me want to doubt her. She's a lifelong actor and she did a great job in Dune: Part Two. Still, I went into Challengers hesitant. However, by the time credits rolled, any reservations I had were firmly put to rest. She is phenomenal. Look no further than how she develops her character in this nonlinear story. The doe-eyed but confident girl we see at the backyard party is not the same woman we see in the wind storm the night before the Phil's Tire Town Challenger finals. Coinciding with this change is her ability to switch from a focused, fierce female to a stoned-eyed romantic who's up past midnight and looking for any form of compassion. Zendaya has the ability to turn a rudimentary scene into something poetic through poise and delivery.

Speaking on her role during The Hollywood Reporter roundtable for female actors, Zendaya had this to say: “When you read certain characters, you’re like, ‘I just can’t pass up the opportunity to play this woman.’ She was refreshing to me. She doesn’t apologize for her need for control as her life is falling apart or for vicariously having to live through other people. … Her true love was tennis. And it gets snatched from her so quickly. She doesn’t know who she is anymore without this thing. And that’s something in my own life — I’ve been working since I was a kid, and I was like, ‘Wait, who am I when I’m not working? Do I have a life? What do I even like to do? What are my hobbies? Like, who is Zendaya outside of this?’”

The concept of control is central to Challengers' simple story. A product of The Blacklist, this original-concept script from Justin Kuritzkes focuses on the love triangle between Tashi, Art and Patrick. Their love affair is inherently tied to the game of tennis and, as such, a lot of their romantic tension is built on the court. Once Tashi can no longer play tennis, the one place on Earth where she was in complete control while having a “relationship” with another person, she tries to fill that void with damning consequences. Although Tashi likes to act like she is in control, her actions show anything but.

This movie is unbelievably horny. The boys want the girl; the girl wants the boys; the boys kind of want each other. The relationship between Art and Patrick persistently sways from fraternal to erotic. This leaves me with the question of if Challengers is really a gay love story masked as a love triangle. Guadagnino, a gay man, is no stranger to homosexual love stories, as he directed the modern classic Call Me By Your Name and this year's Queer. In Challengers, we learn that Patrick thinks of himself as bisexual while Art maintains his heterosexuality, although his relationship with Patrick often teeters the line. There is the scene where they eat churros together, and Guadagnino excellently frames Patrick pulling Art's seat closer to him and Art doing absolutely nothing to stop him. Then there's the scene in the sauna, where the silent sexual tension is palpable. The final conclusion to the movie, which I will not spoil, leaves the question of the boys' sexuality entirely ambiguous.

In case this all wasn't enough, there's the music. This Golden-Globe-winning score is a character of its own. Scored by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, a band that is no stranger to dangerously horny art, the score of Challengers pounds like few other scores do. Guadagnino often places the thumping soundtrack over scenes that have very important dialogue. This creates an exciting but also uneasy feeling to these emotionally vulnerable scenes. It is like the score reflects the characters' intensely beating hearts during moments of temperamental flareups. The music becomes so synonymous with the characters' emotions that, when it starts to play, the viewer can immediately interpret how the character feels at that moment. However, Guadagnino and Ross/Reznor are not satisfied with a completely uniform sound. In a vulnerable third-act scene, the explosive synth soundscape is replaced by a Spanish guitar. This comes entirely out of left field and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer.

I noticed how Guadagnino often chose to use text in the movie's staging. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was. But from the shirt that reads “I told ya” to the text-heavy billboards, the scenes of this movie are littered with large-text canvasses. If anyone has more insights on this, please sound off in the comments below!

There is also the brilliant move of staging the movie's climax during a wind storm. This could carry a number of interpretations, but I think it symbolizes the present moment's power to stir up old emotions. Given the right circumstances, the present can lift years of dust off of old memories. This can conjure within you an emotional storm where everything becomes loose, flailing and uncontrollable. At moments like this, you have to watch your head or something will knock you off your feet.

I had nothing but low expectations for this movie. However, once I started seeing it on year-end lists, I decided to put my assumptions aside and give it a watch. Saying this movie surprised me is an understatement. Guadagnino delivers one of the most creatively shot movies I've ever seen. It's story is an original concept that's actually good, which is so rare and exciting in modern Hollywood. Yes, it's sexy and full of innuendos. But it's also greatly creative, innovative and gripping. Reznor's score gives the movie an unexpected urgency and the performance of Zendaya is expansive. This simple but effective love-triangle story is taken to unexpected heights through impressive acting performances, unreal cinematography and Guadagnino's unlimited creative vision.

Challengers is available to stream on Amazon Prime.