‘I’m taking such good care of my little white boys…’
Luca Guadagnino is a director whose work has mostly passed me by. I didn’t catch his Desire trilogy (made up of I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and Call Me by Your Name), I found Bones and All to be overrated and I missed his first two movies too. Having said that, I did love his Suspiria remake and happily Challengers is right up there with that film as an example of why Guadagnino has become so acclaimed…
Challengers presents us with a classic love triangle but it twists the order of events in such a way that we don’t fully understand the stakes of what we are witnessing until the film’s final moments. Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist) are friends with designs on becoming pro tennis players. Patrick has the talent but none of the drive whereas Art is more hardworking and conscientious. Their friendship and good-natured rivalry is pushed to the limit with the arrival of another aspiring pro tennis player Tashi Duncan (Zendaya).
Guadagnino conjures up a heady mix of love, lust and jealousy, all played out on the tennis court or in hotel rooms and parked cars. The three central leads have an undeniable chemistry with O’Connor and Zendaya particularly sizzling and everyone involved does a great job in blurring the lines between friendship and sex. Guadagnino also uses subtlety to his advantage, never resorting to exposition when a knowing glance will do. It helps that the whole thing looks gorgeous with Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s assured cinematography both innovative and captivating.
Challengers is a film that sees cast and crew firing on all cylinders to produce a piece of work that isn’t quite as transgressive as it wants to be (and perhaps ought to have been) but still manages to be compelling as both a character study and as a comment on relationships and sexuality in general. It also has a great soundtrack. Thoroughly enjoyable cinema.
