Film: “Challengers” starring Zendaya
Luca Guadagnino is such a prolific, creative writer/director, I’m always eager to see what he’ll do next. His work—whether it’s “A Bigger Splash” or “We Are Who We Are” for HBO—is always surprising but shares the following basic elements: a literate script, beautiful surroundings, and mad-sexy actors in sexually charged situations.
His latest film “Challengers,” set in the world of professional tennis, offers us a love triangle among three tennis players: Tashi, an exotic and exquisite-looking female (the singer Zendaya), and two buddies, Art (Mike Feist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Friends since they met as teenagers in tennis camp, Art and Patrick chat Tashi up at a junior championship, and like two puppies in heat, invite her to their hotel room. After a couple of beers, they have a hot-and-heavy three-way make-out session. Tashi leaves them both in their heated state but with a proposition: When Art and Patrick go up against each other tomorrow, whoever wins will get her number.
Tashi and Art decide to attend Stanford rather than go pro immediately. This is problematic for Patrick because while bumming around on the tennis circuit, he has been dating Tashi. While at Stanford, however, Tashi suffers a devastating knee injury during an intercollegiate match. She can no longer play tennis and channels her talent into coaching Art who eventually becomes her husband.
Under Tashi’s tutelage, Art rises in the pro circuit until he starts losing. To build back his confidence ahead of the US Open, Tashi enters him in a Challenger match. Challenger competitors don’t find out who their opponent is until close to the date of their match. And in this case, it happens to be—surprise!—Patrick.
Patrick arrives at the Challenger match in Westchester County, New York, unkempt, out of money and sleeping in his car. Seems he’s never gotten his life or his career together so his only hope is to win the match—and beat his old friend and rival.
Josh O’Connor, whom I’ve only seen as Prince Charles in one of the seasons of “The Crown” is shockingly appealing as bad-boy Patrick. A total charmer, and usually clad only in tennis shorts and often shirtless, he sports a wolfish grin that could get anybody into the sack.
The climax of the movie, which is the actual Challenger match, is packed with drama—both between wavering champion Art and bad boy Patrick. With Tashi watching nervously in the stands, the love triangle has been recreated.
The last 10 minutes has some of the most exciting tennis footage I’ve seen outside of the US Open. The deliberately ambiguous ending has sparked 1,000 explanations all over the internet. No spoilers here, I’m afraid.
Written by Justin Keretzkes, with a haunting score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as of April 30, “Challengers” has grossed $19 million in the United States and Canada and $10.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $29 million. And while two men loving the same woman has been done before (see Truffaut’s “Jules and Jim” and Mazursky’s “Willie and Phil”), you’ve never seen it done in tennis whites. or with such erotic abandon. Aces all around.
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