Challengers – Another view

The film opens and closes with a tennis match. On one side of the net is Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), the face of Wilson tennis rackets, stopping by this second-tier challenger tournament for a confidence boost on his way to attempt a Grand Slam. On the other side of the net is Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), a broke and low-ranked competitor, who sleeps in his car before using online dating to secure a bed during the tournament. After winning their respective brackets, Art and Patrick face off in the finals. Between the beginning and end of the match are a series of flashbacks that raise questions about what the men are competing for.

Unlike a tennis match, which draws the crowd’s attention to the left, then to the right, then to the left, and back again, each flashback presents a new revelation that leaves the viewer unsure where to look next. The narrative unfolds beautifully, with each scene revealing just enough information to answer some questions and raise others. Director Luca Guadagnino (of Call Me By Your Name) has a gift for the slow burn. While many modern films are either predictable or jump the shark, Challengers slowly and deliberately builds to a climax that manages to be both shocking and narratively satisfying.

The drama centers around Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and her respective relationships with both Art and Patrick. Chronologically, the story begins when Art and Patrick are best friends and roommates at a prestigious tennis academy. Immediate after jointly winning the Junior US Open Doubles competition, the pair meet Tashi, and both pursue her. The night before Art and Patrick compete for the individual Junior US Open championship, Tashi agrees to give her number to whoever wins the match. Spoiler alert: she eventually dates both.

Against the backdrop of a sport that maintains a running ranking of all individual competitors, a central question of the film is what it means to be well-matched. In one sense, Art and Tashi are well-matched because they succeed as a team. Simultaneously, however, they do not fully accept and respect each other. Art idolizes Tashi. In an oft-repeated line, Art—as a teenager, college student, and adult—muses that everyone must be in love with Tashi. Art is drawn to Tashi because he views her as some objective “best” in a way that surely everyone must see. He preserves this image by agreeing with her wishes and ignoring her faults, including by declining to confront her after witnessing her transgressions. For her part, Tashi values Art only insofar as he advances her own goals. In a perfect scene, Art asks Tashi if she will love him no matter what happens with his career, and she responds that she is not Jesus. Guadagnino seamlessly takes the scene from racy to maternal. Art begs Tashi to love him, at first as a wife, but then as a mother and protector, seemingly in acknowledgement that she has power over him. She is unable to do it. Neither regards the other as an equal.

Patrick, on the other hand, regards Tashi as an equal, complete with human flaws. The fight preceding Tashi and Patrick’s college break up begins when Patrick refuses to let Tashi push him around. He tells her that if she wants to date someone who will do whatever she wants, she should be with someone like Art, a member of her fan club. “You’re not a member of my fan club?” Tashi questions. Patrick responds that he is her peer. The relationship ends, and she later marries Art. As Patrick tells her twelve years later, Tashi likes Patrick because he sees her for who she is. He sees her talent and beauty and ambition, but also her selfishness and greed and callousness. And he names her flaws—something Art would never dare do.

Along the hypotenuse of the love triangle, Art and Patrick’s friendship presents a third study in relationship equality. Preceding their face off in the Challenger Finals, 12 years after the deterioration of their friendship, Art warns Patrick that their shared history does not make them “peers” because Art is a highly-ranked tennis player and Patrick is not. When Patrick counters that Art has never beaten him, Art demurs, explaining that he has beaten players who have beaten Patrick, and that makes him better. Patrick questions whether Art’s dismissal of him stems from Art’s disbelief that Tashi was ever interested in a guy like Patrick. Art responds that he does not care about events that happened when they were teenagers. But of course, the events, the feelings, and the betrayals are ongoing, which explains the import of the tennis match bookending the film.

Faist and O’Connor are both brilliant. Faist sympathetically straddles the line between arrogant world champion and fragile child. And O’Connor’s sincerity and charm leads us to root for him even when he makes bad choices and his life is a mess. For her part, Zendaya bring an iciness to Tashi that maximizes sex appeal but minimizes emotional depth. Tashi is the clear villain of the story, which is a shame because a more complex portrayal of her character would make for an even more interesting story. This is especially true because the film is propelled entirely by these three characters. The fourth-billed character has fewer than three minutes of screen time.

The dynamic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Academy award winners for Soul and The Social Network) elevates the film and sets the tone. Most notably, it prevents it from being depressing—a noteworthy contribution to a film about insecurities and shattered dreams. The sync-pop insists that the obstacles are thrilling, and the bruises are electrifying. The techno-forward score invokes a video game score: it can be simultaneously exciting and stagnant, as if waiting for a player to act. It can also provide a warning when a player is about to face dangers, and it does so here to great effect. The video game semblance is particularly apt here, where characters play each other like video game avatars, using them as vehicles for their own egos. The audience is absorbed by the synth beat, excitingly anticipating what move the players will make next.

During the final scenes of the film, the cinematography adopts the view of the tennis ball, bouncing between Art and Patrick, soaring into the sky, then whirling down to the ground and back up again. Challengers takes viewers on a similar path. We spring back and forth in time, shifting allegiances and sympathies, whiplashed by confessions and betrayals. And Guadagnino brings home a Grand Slam.