Luca Guadagnino returns to the big screen with a combination of high tempo tennis and melodramatic love triangles..
Despite having a lot less depth and dimension in comparison to others in the Guadagnino oeuvre, Challengers still manages to weave in its occasional nods to more complex topics such as the disintegration of male ego and the cultural fascination with female dominance.
Angst, aggression, and misplaced ambition is the triad that sustains the plot, which follows two young tennis players, Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Conner) in their quest to go pro. It is in this pursuit that they meet Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya), an ambitious semi-professional tennis player, in which they both fall into a messy love triangle that sustains itself over the span of a whole decade.
Flickering in and out of focus throughout is the differing ways Art and Patrick can uphold and maintain domination over one another. In the early years, this desire for domination is juvenile and propped up by teenage tennis glory. But as the two boys come of age their pre-existing drive for physical valour becomes reinforced by the competition for Tashi’s attention and affections, resulting in a complete disintegration of trust and camaraderie.
As the boys become men, both Patrick and Art’s motivations for success exist in similar spaces; located somewhere between self-interest and sexual gratification. And in this boyish, self-abnegating coming of age setting, the sexual conquest of Tashi acts as a self-indulgent mission for mastery over one another. Particularly on the part of Patrick, whose adolescent arrogance never seems to mature over the years.
Attempting to explore the multiplicity of the young masculine ego in the shape of sports players is a rewarding choice for Guadagnino’s direction. Sports competitions condition athletes into equating self-worth with continual improvement. The lesson that you’re only as good as your quantifiable progress is a common cause of emotional burnout in athletes as their larger than life winning streaks inevitably stammer and face setbacks. Combining the ruthlessness of fitness culture with the emotional awkwardness of boyhood, it becomes entirely unsurprising that Tashi can only function as a tool in which the two can subdivide their masculinity and ego through.
Both to Tashi, but more importantly, to one another, genuine emotional intimacy and vulnerability are continually denied and thus diluted into the only thing young sportstars know how to do, compete. And thus, that quintessential coming of age need for connection and compassion is negated and diluted into a quasi-competition for Tashi’s approval.
Angst, aggression, and misplaced ambition is the triad that sustains the plot
Tashi is a fascinating character in herself: both in what she represents and for who she actually is. Whilst not being driven by the same principles of gratification the boys are, she still uses the premise of physical valour as means of self-regulation. Falling into the over ambition all young sports stars are designed to fail against, Tashi allows the pressure of perfection to completely subsume her joy of tennis.
Highly analytical and driven by flaw recognition and immediate self-correction, Tashi is on track for complete success, that is, of course until she suffers a knee injury in her early twenties. Never quite climbing back up to the scope of success everyone presumed she was destined for; she takes the perfectionism that fuelled her and channels it into tennis coaching Art.
Tashi’s love of the game is expressed only through blatant envy and pent up frustration toward Art & Patrick who she deems to be almost undeserving of professional glory. There is a lot of depth to be discovered within a character like Tashi, and whilst Guadagnino’s writing certainly teeters on the edge of this complexity and depth, it never quite amounts to it, instead opting to reframe Tashi's Turmoil as comedically blunt sass.
Tennis, alongside the majority of competitive leisure sports will always act as an ode to the elite. And the fashion of the film signals just that. From the perfectly pristine UNIQLO match attire to the clean crispness of the whites and blues, the social character of the clothing in challengers is constantly referencing the respective positions of each character.
Collaborating with any conglomerate can be seen as a risky move with the potential to massively downplay the artistic authenticity of the film, but Guadagnino and Jonathan Anderson’s collaboration works beautifully well and the attire throughout works to reinforce the film's overall message. Releasing as summer swiftly encroaches is a fantastic advertising strategy, with Challengers functioning as the perfect preppy summer lookbook it would be unsurprising if tennis attire didn’t receive an increase in spring sales.
Through a preppy colour palette, electronic score, and occasional cultural critique Challengers is a film with fun at the centre, detailing all the excitement of a love triangle placed within the world of sport, it's the ideal film to watch for some lighthearted entertainment. With its high tempo pace and bouncy nonlinear narrative Challengers is an exciting, athletic coming of age set inside of a JW. Anderson springtime lookbook.
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