This past weekend, I saw Luca Guadagnino’s new film “Challengers” (2024), starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor. The film follows Zendaya’s Tashi, a tennis prodigy, and the various ups and downs throughout her career. Additionally, the film focuses on Faist’s character, Art, and O’Connor’s Patrick, two longtime best friends and tennis players who each fall for Tashi’s charm and strength and possibly each other. The three collide head-to-head both on and off the court.
Guadagnino, who became well known after skyrocketing Timothée Chalamet’s career with masterpiece “Call Me by Your Name” (2017), has masterfully created one of the most exhilarating and intoxicating sports movies I’ve ever seen. The film was further elevated by a tight and coherent screenplay from Justin Kuritzkes and a pulse-pounding score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
In the past five years, Zendaya has finally begun to show her full potential as an actor. Her roles in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) and “Dune Part: Two” (2024) show her going to depths not seen in her previous work. Those movies also proved Zendaya can draw in large box office sums, with “No Way Home” taking in $1.9 billion at the worldwide box office and “Dune: Part Two” just past the $700 million threshold, an impressive number in the post-pandemic movie world.
With “Challengers,” Zendaya gives the best performance of her career. Playing Tashi as a cold and manipulative partner to both Art and Patrick, Zendaya makes it extremely hard to root for her character. Yet, she finds a way to allow the audience to develop sympathy for Tashi, as the character struggles mightily throughout her career. Zendaya demonstrates raw anger with Tashi which is very powerful to watch on screen.
Pair her with Faist and O’Connor, and you get an electrifying trio with tremendous chemistry. I loved Faist as the protagonist Riff in Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (2021) and he continues to impress me with “Challengers.” Faist’s performance is electric and nuanced and he fully commits to seeming like an actual professional tennis player. I was unfamiliar with O’Connor’s work before this film, but I am now eager to explore his filmography.
“Challengers” consists of some of the most unique and expressionistic camera work I have seen in a movie in years. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom pulls out all the stops in this film. After working with Guadagnino on “Call Me by Your Name,” the two clearly have very similar visions of what they want the film to be. They use tight close-ups, slow motion and, in some shots, mimic the perspective of a tennis ball with the camera. All of this makes for an engaging viewing, one heightened when experienced on the biggest screen possible.
Composers Reznor and Ross, who received critical acclaim and Academy Awards for their work on “The Social Network” (2010), created an astonishing score for this film. Using a mix of techno beats and classical orchestral music, they make a score that is both emotionally moving and so tense you feel as if your heart will burst out of your chest.
Overall, Guadagnino’s “Challengers” is one of the most surprising and entertaining movies I have seen this year. I will surely revisit it multiple times because of its impassioned performances and magnificent score.
