Not Exactly a Grand Slam

(051624) Challengers is a mostly entertaining sports/romantic drama about the tempestuous love triangle between one female and two male tennis players. The film has an interesting and very human love story at its core. But most of the time you get the feeling that the three main characters love the sport more than they love each other. It also is filled exciting tennis sequences, and I liked the film overall although am not that big of a tennis fan.

Although it is not nearly as brilliant, the film is like the “Before” film trilogy: Before Sunrise (1995). Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013) because it shows the characters throughout the years and captures the shifts between their relationships. But this film covers less ground and does not explore whole decades and only focuses on a few years in contrast to the other film.

Challengers was made by the Italian director, Luca Guafagrri who also previously directed three very different films. The gay melodrama Call Me by The Name (2017), the horror/dance giallo remake Suspiria (2018), and my favorite of the three, the cannibal film, Bones and All (2023) which had some horror elements but it was shot like a 50s drama. Although the quality of his films has remained high, I find it troubling that his films have become more international and less distinctly Italian. I was not surprised to read that the director was queer because the film has more scenes of casual male nudity (usually not in a sexual context) and less female nudity than is usually found in mainstream American films.

Challengers features two male lead performances by Mike Faust and Josh Conner and they are not terribly distinctive or compelling, but the winning and wonderful performance by rising star Zendaya (full name is Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman) is the main reason for seeing the film. Zendaya also served as co-producer in the film and she even helped scout locations for it. She recently had back-to-back successes in both film and television, receiving two Prime Time Best Dramatic Actress Emmys for her role on the TV show Euphoria. Genre film fans recognize her primarily for her recurring roles as MJ (not Mary Jane) in her three Spiderman films and in the recent two Dune movies.

The three main characters have a very messy and complicated history. When Tashi, Art and Patrick meet they are all in their prime as tennis players. Eventually Patrick becomes Tashi’s boyfriend but he ruins it when he makes a terrible mistake. At one-point Tashi is wounded and severely injures her knee in a match. But Tashi is put off when Patrick is not there for her during her injury and Art shows he is more devoted to her and acts dutifully.

Years later the dynamic shifts totally and everyone seems like they are at the end of their tennis careers. Tashi and Art had since married and had a child. Because of Tashi’s injury she cannot play professionally anymore but she stays connected to the game by becoming Art’s coach. She coaches him to success, he becomes a champion, and he is about to retire (thirty something tennis players usually start slowing down).

But temptation rears its ugly head. The less serious and womanizing Patrick senses that Tashi is bored in her marriage and tries to entice her into betraying her husband. Before a big match between the two men, Patrick tries to get Tashi to switch sides and coach him instead of her husband. None of the characters come off particularly morally upright in this situation except for Art but the audience cannot be blamed for thinking that neither man is worthy of Tashi or that perhaps she should not be tied down to any person.

Zenyatta’s character, Tashi is not above using her sexuality to manipulate others or to help further her own ends. At one point she promises the two men that she will sleep with which ever one wins a match and, in another scene, she tries to get a man who likes her to throw a tennis game for her.

One of the best parts of the film is the music. The film’s memorable soundtrack is comprised of mostly electronic music without vocals influenced by Berlin techno and rave music. The composers, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails previously collaborated with the same director on Bones and All and they all work very well together. The music and visuals mesh perfectly and the musical pieces either disrupt or propel the action in particular scenes and they often mirror the speed and harshness of the tennis strokes.
I’ve seen Reznor and Atticus perform live twice in their band Nine Inch Nails at two Lollapaloozas and loved them, and I also have admired their film score work for years especially in David Fincher films such as The Social Network (2010), Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  (2011) and Mank (2020). Their participation (besides Zenyatta) was one of the main reasons I wanted to see this film.

Apart from a momentary bisexual twist (at one point the two male characters kiss and have a threesome with Zenyatta) the story itself is not particularly special. In the hands of a lesser director this could have been as banal as a typical Lifetime film. But the quality of the tennis scenes, the terrific, well used soundtrack, and the fine lead female performance make the film a pleasure even if you are not the biggest sports or romantic film fan.