'Challengers' review: tennis trio in a power struggle

The French monks who invented tennis nine centuries ago must be blushing that Luca Guadagnino's “Challengers” are exposing their sport (game of pincrease, or “palm game”) as one that reeks of sexual frustration. Eroticism begins with the racket. Firm at one end, flexible at the other, its very parts (the shaft, the throat, the head, the rim, the butt) are named with a wink-wink. There's a moment in “Challengers” when a player places his hairy ball in the throat of his racket and you know exactly what he means.

Then there's the sweat and, sweatier still, the sounds of athletes pushing aside any sense of shame as they grunt, snort, gasp, scream and curse. For Zendaya's fearsome Tashi Duncan, pure tennis is when you focus so much on the movement of your limbs that the rest of the world disappears. In her climactic moments of victory, Tashi screams. Her excitement is intense. You can't take your eyes off her.

Guadagnino specializes in films about obsessives who spend their time turning you on with their perversions, whether they be dancing, singing, bloodsucking, sex, more sex, or tennis and sex, which here become practically the same thing. Guadagnino's healthy appreciation for compulsions, in turn, has made the public take notice of him. “Call Me by Your Name” struck a chord because not only were it beautiful shots of Timothée Chalamet looking longingly at Armie Hammer, but it also showed the boy sneaking off to sniff Hammer's swimsuit. That Oscar-nominated film is much gentler and more sincere than “Challengers,” a stylish, mischievous and fiercely well-acted trivia about characters who are more likely to scribble something gross in the bathroom than to quote Heraclitus. It lacks the control of Guadagnino's previous work; or rather, I should say, it requires subtlety and restraint and throws them over the fence and into the bushes.

The script, by Justin Kuritzkes, goes back and forth over a 13-year span during which our three protagonists mature from ages 18 to 31 (at least physically). Tashi is the prize of the endless competition between two tennis camp bunkmates: Patrick (Josh O'Connor), the homeless man who scores first, and Art (Mike Faist), the hard-working guy who wins her hand in marriage. But Tashi, the best player of the three, controls the game. She thrives on the rivalry between the boys and claims that the tension also benefits her tennis. Only the movie doesn't force us to believe him, or even to believe that anyone in this love triangle genuinely loves each other. Kuritzkes is married to filmmaker Celine Song, whose loosely autobiographical “Past Lives” is also about a woman in a three-way affair who questions whether she chose the right man. I won't speculate on the inner workings of anyone's marriage; I'll just say that these two films would make a stimulating double feature.

Tennis is the only thing that matters. Nothing else is worth discussing, unless it is codified in tennis tips. Tashi, Art and Patrick are not complete characters. We don't care about their family, friends or their lives beyond court. Even when the film veers to Tashi and Art's first year at Stanford, one remains unconvinced that either of them can name a book. But these are not whole people, not even with respect to her young daughter (AJ Lister) who is sent off with promises that her parents will spend time with her when they finish talking tennis. (“But you're always talking about tennis,” the girl sighs, a phrase she'll probably repeat to her therapist.) On the rare occasions when the script has the actors say something that doesn't directly refer to the game, it's a whiff, like a gag Kuritzkes pulls from that infamous exchange between Han and Leia in “The Empire Strikes Back.” (“I love you, I know.”)

The film begins in the characters' present with Art and Patrick facing off at the 2019 Phil's Tire Town Challenge in New Rochelle, New York, a surprisingly dark backdrop for all the tense flashbacks to come. But humility is appropriate. Art, the star of the two, is a sinking whale in need of confidence, according to the sports announcers who clumsily announce his arc in the background of an early scene. Art has a personal masseuse, a refrigerator of cold-pressed juices, a line of his own custom racquets, and a wife who also acts as his business manager and coach. Patrick is a chain-smoking, single man who scavenges for leftover bagels, sleeps in his car, and gets locked out when he tries to trade an autographed racket for a motel room deposit.

We assume we are meant to support the underdog. But to the film's credit, O'Connor plays Patrick more like a coyote, a hungry creature you pity on the street but don't trust anywhere near your kitty. Patrick does not value his talent and does not respect the game; in turn, the film never respects it. As Patrick goes around the film invading people's space with his strength and his cheeky habit of stealing their snacks (and dropping their shorts), Guadagnino overdoes it in close-ups of O'Connor wrinkling his mouth into a fake smile. . . Guadagnino mixes up his smug smile so much that we get tired of it, and maybe that's the point: Patrick's charm is losing his appeal. So how is this animal going to survive?

Zendaya in the movie “Challengers”.

(Niko Tavernise / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Images)

Meanwhile, the pressure of Art's success has him exhausted. Marrying the girl of his dreams has left him as empty as a glass without champagne.

The languid piano scales capture the hypnotic effect Tashi has on both men. More often, however, “Challengers” punctuates scenes with an aggressive electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which is fantastic but only intermittently seems to have anything to do with what's on screen. The heavy beats work best as a metronome for the tennis fans in the stands bobbing their heads between volleys, though for a while I was half-convinced they were also the hold music that filled Art's head every time his wife did not lecture him about his game.

Really, though, I think Guadagnino is just having fun, especially when the feeling of that racing pulse becomes even more important than the dialogue. Some conversations don't even try to be heard over the noise. Instead, they adopt that crunchy, echoing sound of movie quotes absorbed into club music, like that George Michael song “Too Funky” coupled with a sample of Anne Bancroft from “The Graduate” purring: “Do you want me to seduce you?”

Likewise, the visual style is so striking that cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom seems to have been asked to tick off every technique: freeze frames, slow motion, dissolved characters, extreme close-ups of beads of sweat, mesmerizing long takes where the acting shines. . The camera is above the court, below the court, in the path of the ball, above the ball, above the racket. The shot list should resemble the Kama Sutra. The only coherent statement is excess.

However, Zendaya's performance cuts through the noise. Her Tashi is all length (long arms, long legs, long braids) with a small, fierce chin expressed in anger. If anger was packaged like Wheaties, she'd be in the box. She gets the funniest and cruelest responses and holds the screen like a woman in command, even when she allows the film to be salacious. Guadagnino presents her in a butt-focused shot reminiscent of “Athena Girl,” that best-selling 1970s calendar photo of a jock scratching her bare bottom. Tashi, of course, would never be so careless about the sport she loves. His enthusiasm for tennis and all the fiery passions it inspires is so compelling that it was only when the big match came to an end and the pace of the film slowed to an irritating pace that I realized I still had no idea What is a tennis match like? she noted. Tashi would consider that the biggest betrayal of all.