The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Challengers (15)
The scoring system of a game of singles tennis dictates both players start a match in love and victory on the court requires forceful breaks of the romantic deadlock.
Love in myriad forms is the driving force in Challengers, a sexually charged study of the twisted relationship between two tennis players and the ferociously ambitious young woman who comes between them.
Screenwriter and playwright Justin Kuritzkes, husband of Oscar-nominated Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song, serves a tantalising battle of wits between Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.
Their on-screen chemistry sizzles, crescendoing with a steamy encounter in a hotel room that attests to the actors’ unwavering trust in director Luca Guadagnino.
Pulses continually race as the leads lob each other loaded dialogue, like when Faist and O’Connor’s buddies-turned-rivals attempt to intimidate each other in a sauna.
One intentionally drops his towel, the other responds with a taunt about who ended up with the girl (“This is a game about winning the points that matter...”)
Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom energise on-court action with hyperkinetic camerawork, including dizzying sequences from the ball’s perspective as it ricochets back and forth over the net to repeated thwacks and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s electronic score.
At the 2006 US Open, teenage best friends and players Art Donaldson (Faist) and Patrick Zweig (O’Connor) mutually obsess over Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya) as she destroys a Russian rival on the court.
While Patrick attempts to turn professional, Art follows Tashi to Stanford University, where she suffers a career-ending injury.
“Unfortunately, my only skill in life is hitting a ball with a racquet,” she tearfully reflects and Art convinces her to become his coach and wife.
A dip in form ahead of the 2021 US Open, the only title that has eluded Art, convinces Tashi to enter her husband in the Phil’s Tire Town Challenger in New Rochelle.
It is one of the lowest ranking events on the men’s tour ahead of Flushing Meadows and Art should breeze through the competition – except Patrick, ranked 201st in the world, is also in the draw.
Challengers contrasts the sweat-drenched exertions of Faist and O’Connor, who look ready to implode with exhaustion by the end of the two hours, with Zendaya’s masterful verbal rallies.
As a sports prodigy cruelly halted in her prime, resenting anyone who squanders their talent or mithers about the physical toll, she devours the screen.
“You’d have a better shot with a handgun in your mouth,” Tashi coldly informs Patrick about his chances of beating Art in New Rochelle.
Fractured chronology shifts the balance of power, keeping us guessing who will fire off the next zinging ace and seize the advantage.
As awestruck observers to mounting devastation and smashed racquets, we are the only sure-fire winners.
Game, set, love match.