A Sexy Tennis Thriller—Yes, Really

As any fan of tennis can inform you, one of the sport’s chief joys is how rivalries between players can develop and mature over decades. Certain matchups are larded with history, friendship, and sometimes real animosity that can be far more personal than in any team competition. Luca Guadagnino’s new film, Challengers, injects romance into this dynamic, as the on-court battle between two players quickly comes to include a woman they both love. And because it’s made by the filmmaker behind movies such as Call Me by Your Name and A Bigger Splash, what might be a straightforward love triangle is also possessed with a tangled European sensibility that’s unafraid to step beyond conventional sexual norms.

Challengers follows the tennis champ Art Donaldson (played by Mike Faist) and his wife, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a retired player whose meteoric stardom was derailed by injury. Their life is interrupted by Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), Art’s former practice partner and Tashi’s former boyfriend, whose own professional career is approaching washout status. The film skillfully ping-pongs back and forth in time, filling in the audience on the highs and lows of each relationship and how it shaped the arc of Art and Patrick’s rivalry. With each new nugget of narrative context, Guadagnino reveals that Challengers isn’t just a war over a woman’s affections; it’s also a love story between the two men, whose relationship has always existed in the murky nexus between best friends and potential lovers.

I’m making the film sound a little more salacious than it actually is, but only a little. Considering it’s a Guadagnino movie, Challengers is on the tamer side—there’s none of the ravenous cannibalistic munching of the bizarre Bones and All, and unlike in Call Me by Your Name, nobody has sex with a piece of fruit. Challengers has a more commercial sheen, which makes its moments of debauchery feel all the more energized. Sure, there are some sex scenes, but Guadagnino has the most fun when some combination of Art, Patrick, and Tashi are smashing forehands and backhands at each other, trying to work out their swirling feelings in the crucible of sport.

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Somehow, Guadagnino has become one of Hollywood’s best grown-up filmmakers: someone who makes movies with adult themes, reasonably sized budgets, and genuine stars such as Zendaya. That’s not the career I might have predicted following early works such as 2009’s dreamy and charged I Am Love, but Challengers is a great example of how a director can temper his preoccupations just a little in order to reach beyond the art-house crowd. Still, Challengers wouldn’t work if it lacked interest in the actual tennis being played. I think of flimsy efforts such as the shoddy rom-com Wimbledon, which wasted Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany on a paint-by-numbers underdog tale filled with way too many CGI’d serves. But Guadagnino makes the sport itself so fun to watch, occasionally giving us point-of-view camera shots from the tennis ball’s perspective as it whirls around the court, with an EDM-infused score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross thrumming away in the background. Challengers’ fractured timeline, which checks in with our protagonists at different points in their career, means it doesn’t follow the traditional up-and-down arcs of a sports movie. But it’s told with energy and purpose, even as its characters suffer through plenty of dreary rock-bottom moments.

And, yes, there is a moment that’s like the steamy climax of Y Tu Mamá También (though with a lot less erotic resolution), as, early in their careers, Tashi encourages Patrick and Art to kiss each other while they’re both flirting with her in a hotel room. Still, it’d be too easy to call this a tale of repressed romance between its male leads; instead, it’s about their intense competitiveness in every sphere of life, and how that’s fed by their athletic intensity, personal jealousy, and obvious affection for each other. A lesser filmmaker would untangle these romantic threads and lay out an easy ending, happy or unhappy. Guadagnino, though, thrives in the mess, finishing off his story just as he started it—with these three characters simultaneously angry, horny, and searching for answers. It’s far more thrilling, and triumphant, than a simple tale of someone lifting a trophy, or love conquering all.