Movie: Challengers (2024)
Production Companies: MGM, Pascal Pictures
Distributed by: Amazon Studios
Producers: Luca Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor, Amy Pascal, Zendaya
Starring: Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor
Review by: Cam Wiggs

Try as we may, all of us go into movies with certain expectations. Speaking personally, it would be great to walk into a movie with a completely clear mind about it… but it’s not possible. There is always something about a film – its director, its lead actor, its trailer, its poster, an opinion about it you overheard from a really annoying coworker – that influences how we feel heading into a viewing. For that reason, I am not (completely) ashamed to admit that when I settled into my reclining seat at the beautiful Alamo Drafthouse Theater on Wednesday, I felt a bit heavier than usual as the weight of my expectations for Challengers peaked just prior to showtime.

My “something”? None other than the film’s critically-revered, Academy Award Nominated director, Luca Guadagnino (he was nominated as a producer). You see, some of the most difficult films for me to evaluate have been Luca’s films. Of his works, I’d previously seen Call Me by Your Name (2017), Suspiria (2018), and Bones and All (2022) heading into his latest. Each of these films were complicated to review and for similar reasons. On one hand, the films are extraordinarily well-crafted from a technical perspective with wonderful sound design, production design, lighting, cinematography, score/soundtrack, and just about every other technical category you can name. No one can question his mastery as filmmaker. On the other hand, the aforementioned films are also self-indulgent and self-serious (some more so than others) with clumsily-written dialogue at times and borderline amoral theming/narratives. So, for those reasons, I tend to skew slightly to the positive side of mixed on Luca as a director, which made my expectations for Challengers a complete mess.

My personal pre-conceived notions aside, Challengers is undoubtedly a movie circled on most film-lovers’ list of 2024 theatrical releases. I mean, *Stefan voice* this movie has everything: a beloved, (somewhat) niche director, perhaps the biggest rising star in the entire Film & TV industry, a story that mixes sports biopic vibes with a love triangle, and a thumping electronica score composed by Nine Inch Nails’ Grammy & Academy Award winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Need I say more? Probably not but, then again, there’s the pesky habit of mine to share all of my thoughts about a movie. So, here it goes…

Written by Justin Kuritzkes, Challengers tells the story of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), three rising tennis stars who find themselves stuck in a complicated love triangle. As if love triangles aren’t inherently tricky enough, the situation becomes all the more involuted when a devastating injury jeopardizes Tashi’s playing career, fundamentally altering the power dynamics within the triangle.

Now, you may be thinking (I mean, probably not but maybe), “Power dynamics? That’s a strange way to refer to a love triangle.” But that’s where you would be wrong, my naive, hypothetical friend, because Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan is formidable. Both the way the character is written and the way she is portrayed by Zendaya sets the tone for the entire film. And that’s not to say co-stars Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor do not also turn in great performances, they do (for the most part). The simple fact of this movie, however, is that it could only ever go as far as Zendaya could take it, which, as it turns out, is remarkably far.

Admittedly, I wasn’t completely sold on Zendaya as an actor heading into this year. Though I had never seen her turn in a “bad” performance, she had not yet done anything in her career I would have deemed overly spectacular either. My thinking began to change after I saw her performance in Dune: Part Two earlier this year. So, I was eager to see her in Challengers to find out if her showing in Dune: Part Two was an anomaly or a new standard for Zendaya. Interestingly, when the movie started I was not immediately impressed. She seemed to be portraying a character that was one-dimensional and trite, an archetype that is overdone and not particularly interesting. Then, the first time jump happened (there are MANY), and everything changed. She then showed that what I saw in the opening as a flat, finished product of a performance was a mere glimpse into an extremely layered and nuanced character that continually deepened as the film unfolded.

The catalyst for this depth of character development is a narrative tactic that, while not new, has become a particular favorite of mine over the years. I am sure there is a technical term for it but I usually refer to it simply as the “Memento Method” of storytelling and, if you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000), the namesake of my made up term, this will make perfect sense. Like Memento, Challengers drops audiences at or near the end of the chronological timeline of the story before spending the next couple hours violently jerking them forward and backward through time to fill in the gaps in the story in the optimal order. Inherently, this method is convoluted and some dislike it entirely, a point of view with which I can empathize. But, if you can keep your hands and legs inside the narrative vehicle with your seatbelt fastened, you are almost always in for a fun ride. In Challengers, I certainly found that to be the case as the story steadily crescendoed into a high stakes and highly-satisfying payoff. In order to achieve that payoff, there are two critical weapons films using the “Memento Method” must wield.

The first is an airtight screenplay. If you are going to tell your story with a spasmodic chronology, the plot must be hole-free. This is somewhat obvious and also true to any movie or story, which is why I am not going to focus on it here.

The second arrow a film like this needs in its quiver is perhaps more important and certainly far rarer: a fearless director. You need someone leading the production that understands, believes in, and commits fully to every aspect of the story. They should also be willing and eager to trust the audience to interpret the film, believing the screenplay and final product provides enough information for viewers to stay engaged and enthralled with each forward and backward jump of the sporadic storyline.

In my opinion, and in spite of my issues with some of his prior works, there is no director more fearless in their approach than Luca Guadagnino. His unwavering conviction in his creative vision is truly second to none. In fact, I would go as far as to say most of the time he seems to simply not care if audiences like or understand his films. It could even be said that Luca’s fearlessness and commitment to a singular creative vision is both his biggest strength and weakness as a director, as the reverence with which he approaches his films’ subject matter can sometimes go too far at the expense of the film’s tone and effect. Despite this, I will never fault any filmmaker, much less Luca Guadagnino, for taking bold creative swings.

Thankfully, in the case of Challengers, Luca’s fearless nature and steadfast commitment to the story and his creative vision come together to create what I believe is his best film so far. Challengers is packed with shot after shot that is rife with intention. Not to mention shots I don’t think I have ever seen in any movie before much less a sports drama. It’s also got excellent acting performances, an addictive score, a superb screenplay, and so much more. Even at its most self-indulgent and melodramatic, when I started to ask myself questions like, “is this too much? are they milking it a bit here?”, the answer that kept popping into my head was a resounding “no.” It just works. And, though I expect both critics and audiences alike will be mixed on this one, I can’t remember the last time I heard a packed theater buzz as much as it did when the credits rolled on Challengers. It is completely intoxicating and has not left my mind in the last 72 hours. It is my second favorite movie of 2024 so far and I cannot see there being 10 movies better than Challengers this year.

So, to Luca, Zendaya, and the entire cast and crew of Challengers: we’ll see you at the Oscars!

9.3 out of 10 Kernels

Thanks for reading!

-Cam