Luca Guadagnino’s latest story stars electric performances from Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor in a film that masters intensity.
By Laari Ruby
June 3, 2024
Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” is a showcase of his absolute mastery of the art of tension. His ability to string together 15 years of plot while maintaining the viewers attention and excitement lends to his ability to direct an electric tone.
The film jumps around its timeline yet maintains its sense of direction, keeping score of everything to happen in three messy relationships. The tennis and sex of it all are woven so closely together that one cannot exist without the other, and every scene between two people seems to be about both simultaneously. Writer Justin Kuritzkes complicates the narrative without leaving the audience behind, allowing us to untangle years of backstabbing, anger and repression both on the court and off.
The brilliance in this film is in presenting the audience with a mess without making the story itself messy. There is so much density to the relationships that the audience has to untangle and interpret, yet there is no point in the film where I found myself lost or confused, I always understood why one thing happened, or why it related to a past event. Jumping around a 15 year timeline is no easy feat, but Kuritzkes does it with ease.
In “Challengers”, tennis player Art (Mike Faist) is trying to find his groove after a losing streak. With the help of his wife and former tennis star Tashi (Zendaya), he enrolls in a small challenger competition, however Art’s old friend Patrick (Josh O’Connor) is there to steal the trophy and his wife. The backstories of each are deeply explored and the parallels between past and present keep us enticed with the current moment at the challenger event.
With so much time moving through this film, one of the more unique and genius things Guadagnino does is keep the score extremely consistent. A high energy EDM beat is used throughout the entirety of the film. The score lacks any orchestral music that would typically attempt to blend into the background or cue our emotions, but rather uses the beat to keep the film focused. The score creates a cohesive feel keeping the audience in a competitive mindset and creates an energetic tension in moments that would otherwise be seen as emotional. Parallels in the story are further emphasized by being cued by the same music. We are shown how much the characters are consistently focused on winning. Using the same music during tennis matches and love scenes show us that nothing is truly an independent event, but that everything ties together. The abrupt stop and start of the music heightens the tension, it never lets go of your attention and lends to the aggression present in every character. The constant high energy keeps the audience on the edge of their seat, further showing this mastery of tension.
The cinematography of the film matched the electric energy of the score. The camera shows the grandeur of these characters, keeping the actors filling the frame and centered. Very long takes emphasize how quickly these characters change on each other the moment they realize a new opportunity for success. The camera compliments the story’s tone without being so experimental that it draws the audience away from the story, which is often Guadagnino’s focal point in his films.
The cinematography steals the show in the final scene during a showdown between Art and Patrick, when the camera becomes the tennis ball. We as the audience see the two men swinging back and forth at each other and get ripped around the space between them. This shot captures the animosity on the court and the intensity of this moment so well by getting into the physicality of the sport. After going over the net a few times, the camera swirls and pulls upward away from the net, giving us a bird’s eye view of the court. This shot captured my attention more than any shot I can remember in recent history.