Italian Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino
in the last few years took a stab at horror with his 2018 remake of Dario
Argento’s Suspiria followed by his post-COVID cannibal romantic thriller
Bones and All in 2022. Showing an
enormous amount of confidence when it came to fearlessly diving into
transgression before mixing his romantic past with his newfound horror present,
Guadagnino very quickly reestablished himself as an uncompromising provocateur
ready for anything unafraid to push his audiences into uncomfortable arenas
while remaining fully devoted to the dynamic arcs of his characters. Moreover, not since the heyday of Wong
Kar-Wai has a European director had such a keen omnisexual regard for both his
stories and the people living in them.
Immediately following Bones and All Guadagnino teamed
up with American playwright Justin Kuritzkes, the husband of Past Lives director
Celine Song, and the newly formed twosome concocted perhaps the sexiest tennis
movie ever put forth before cameras.
Despite being delayed for about a year due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike,
Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers comes to theaters in one of the year’s
most electric triangular romantic dramas.
Told in a time-jumping non-linear structure that can be dizzying
initially but serves an emotional and thematic purpose, Challengers tells
the tale of former tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) who after suffering a
debilitating injury turns to coaching her champion husband Art Donaldson (Mike
Faist). Intending to redeem his loser
reputation, Tashi and Art’s plans are complicated by the arrival of challenger
Patrick Zweig, Art’s former best friend and Tashi’s former lover.
Though the premise of the film flirts with the notion of the
mé·nage à trois, hinted at seductively in the trailers, Challengers is
perhaps (in addition to being a return to form) Guadagnino’s most technically
proficient and artistically challenging work to date. Full of stunning camerawork and editing
designed to present the tennis game like we’ve never seen before including an
extraordinary sequence of the perspective of the tennis ball itself being
bounced back and forth between the court.
Lensed exquisitely by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom who shot Guadagnino’s previous
three films and brilliantly edited by Marco Costa, the film does astounding visual
feats aided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ positively pulsating score. Honestly the silver screen has never seen or
hear the tennis game quite like this before and at times in the Dolby Cinema
you felt as if you might get struck by the ball itself.
Then you have
her go-getting ferocity which sometimes comes out in sequences of her just
glaring at the camera with eyes glowering up from underneath Kubrick
style. Josh O’Connor I was familiar with
from his work on the Netflix series The Crown as the prickly Prince
Charles and here he more than rises to the occasion as a smitten best friend
turned sworn mortal enemy. Mike Faist,
still a bit of a newcomer in bit parts like the remake of West Side Story,
gets his first real leading role here as the former best friend turned
arch-rival.
Guadagnino is a new master storyteller to go
out of your way to the cinema for featuring some of Trent Reznor and Atticus
Ross’ best work in recent memory, terrific performances from Zendaya, Josh
O’Connor and Mike Faist and this is easily one of the year’s most unexpected
pleasures. Word on the street is
Guadagnino is looking to adapt William S. Burroughs next so stay tuned! One of the great new directors to really
watch for.
--Andrew Kotwicki