Challengers

Challengers (2024) looks like a tennis film, but tennis is the vehicle. The subject is a power relationship between three people. Tashi is a rising player. An injury ends her career, and from then on she coaches her husband Art. Art is in decline. The opponent he draws is his old friend and Tashi's former boyfriend, Patrick. The film spans thirteen years and does not proceed chronologically. It keeps returning to the same match and shows a little more each time. What matters is not who wins but how the three of them arrived there. Guadagnino does not shoot tennis from the standard broadcast angle. There are shots from beneath the court, from inside the net, and from the ball's point of view. In the final match the camera moves progressively into the characters' perspective and the match turns into a conversation. The score is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and putting techno under a tennis film is a deliberate decision; the rhythm follows the tension between the characters rather than the pulse of the match. Zendaya is also one of the producers. The most discussed thing about it is that the relationship between the three is never given a name. It runs 132 minutes. Good for: relationship drama, formally bold filmmaking, and sport. Less good for: the sexual content is heavy, none of the characters is likeable, and viewers who do not follow tennis will miss the tension in some scenes.