Every scene in Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” is a competition.
Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) might be tennis players, but their competitive nature rears its head in nearly every aspect of their lives. Every conversation ripples with tension, the precarious nature of the triangle they’ve built for themselves threatened with every heated glance, every stony word, every attempt to one-up the other however they can. And then, there are the scenes of actual competition, which feel like sex by way of tennis.
The film starts at its end, the audience thrust into a finals matchup between Patrick, a washed-up has-been looking to prove himself, and Art, a former champ on a cold streak. It’s apparent from the beginning that these two have history. Tashi, Art’s coach and wife, sits on the sidelines, cold as steel, watching her husband take on his former best friend – and her former boyfriend.
Tennis, much like sex, is a transference of power – a relationship, if you will. It’s a back and forth where the momentum changes constantly, where you’re on top one moment and on the bottom the next. “Challengers” takes that power struggle and injects it through the whole of its characters’ lives, showing what it looks like to vie for the top dog position both on the court and between the sheets.
The result is one of Guadagnino’s best, a ferocious outing that buzzes with eroticism, somehow leaving you wanting more while feeling like you could run a marathon by its end. With a sharp script from Justin Kuritzkes and backdropped by a pulsating techno score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Challengers” doesn’t just tell the story of a relationship between three people, but shows us where desire and need lie in the spaces between them, using the pacing and intimacy of tennis to literalize every moment of push and pull, every spark of desire, and every change in the power dynamic.
The film begins with that championship match, but jumps around in time to pull together each thread of the complicated history between this trio, beginning with their first meeting as teenagers. Art and Patrick are a talented young doubles team, but Tashi is at the top of her game, a prodigy poised to become the next Serena Williams. Both boys take an interest in Tashi (how could you not?), and after a titillating night in a hotel room, she chooses Patrick, Art left quietly pining from the sidelines. But when Tashi suffers a career-ending injury, the trio breaks apart. Patrick is left to the wind, but Art and Tashi eventually embark on a relationship doomed to become professional first, romantic a distant second – more player and coach than husband and wife.
We first meet the older versions of Art and Tashi as they ready for a match, following a strict morning routine: he stretches with a trainer while she signs off on marketing campaigns, listening intently to the tennis commentary playing on the television in whatever nondescript, swanky hotel room they happen to be staying in. At some point, Art has had enough (he folds a little easier than Tashi) and wordlessly mutes the TV while she spares him a withering look. He’s not doing well, and they both know it.
Before the match, they sit silently in a dark room, and he spits his gum out into her hand before heading onto the court – a ritual we later see him repeat with Patrick back in their doubles days, a moment that paints Art in almost a childlike manner, as someone to be taken care of rather than an equal. For his part, Patrick lacks the staleness of the routine that’s taken hold of Tashi and Art, but he’s a far cry from the comfort of swanky hotels. We first meet him trying to sweet talk his way into a crappy motel room with all the money he doesn’t have. He sleeps in his car, or he sleeps with other people so he doesn’t have to sleep in his car. The film is economical in its character set up, showing rather than telling in its effort to establish who these people have become in the years since they’ve been apart.
There’s a constant push and pull between these three as they revolve around each other, moving up and down in the rankings they’ve created for themselves. The movie sets the audience up to believe that Tashi is the connecting link in the love triangle – one of the film’s opening moments starts on a wide shot of the match raging on between Patrick and Art, slowly zooming to Tashi sitting front row center. In some ways, she is the thing that comes between the two men. When they meet her as teens, the boys both shoot their shots, their approaches highlighting the differences between them. Art compliments Tashi’s game, Patrick asks her if she smokes. “She’s a remarkable young woman,” Art says. “I’d let her f*ck me with a racket,” Patrick chirps.
But did she come between them, or open them up to something that was already there? As the action unfolds, it’s not so much about who’s coming between who, but what each person desires from the other. Zendaya plays Tashi with steely resolve in her older years and the casual confidence of a prodigy as a teen, but the thing that’s never lacking is her tendency to push, both herself and others. Every interaction between Tashi and both or either of these young men is an opportunity to see how far she can push them and how much they can take – whether it be in the oft-teased threesome scene from the trailer, or on the court itself. Patrick pushes back, part of what breaks them up his inability to conform to Tashi’s demanding nature. Art needs that pressure, thrives on that constant disapproval in a way that Patrick doesn’t, But perhaps Tashi needs some pressure of her own – perhaps she needs something from both of them.
Where Tashi treats Art with a cold resolve, Patrick wants to rile him up, both certain they know how best to help him reach his full potential. All three actors move with intent and a sort of raw sexuality in relation to each other, but that desire is never more potent than it is when Art and Patrick share the screen. Editor Marco Costa treats each shot like a serve, like a volley, cutting back and forth between each character until the pull between them demands they are in the frame together. O’Connor and Faist have electric chemistry, Patrick’s loose confidence ratcheting up Art’s tautness, always trying to reel the other in emotionally or physically. It’s a change from how Tashi’s severity eases Art’s tension, or how Patrick tends to make Tashi lose some of her stiffness. Each person brings out something different in the other, like they don’t fit unless it’s all three of them together.
Tennis – intensely athletic, a true power struggle of a sport – is the perfect way to emphasize the back and forth between this triangle. The camera is intently focused on bodies, whether it be the way muscles glisten under sweat or ripple with impact. Guadagnino has always been interested in bodies in motion, and “Challengers” is no exception. The way these three play tennis mirrors how they move and relate to each other off the court – Tashi, explosive and powerful; Art, taut and quick; and Patrick, relaxed and full of swagger. But, for as much as their personal lives are filled with that same sense of competition, tennis elevates everything to another plane of existence. Here, they can communicate in ways they’d never allow themselves to in real life – they can really tell each other what they want, and give each other what they need.