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From the Editor's Desk As any fan of tennis can inform you, one of the sport's chief joys is how rivalries between players can develop and mature over decades. Certain matchups are larded with history, friendship, and sometimes real animosity that can be far more personal than in any team competition. Luca Guadagnino's new film, Challengers, injects romance into this dynamic, as the on-court battle between two players quickly comes to include a woman they both love. And because it's made by the filmmaker behind movies such as Call Me by Your Name and A Bigger Splash, what might be a straightforward love triangle is also possessed with a tangled European sensibility that's unafraid to step beyond conventional sexual norms.Challengers follows the tennis champ Art Donaldson (played by Mike Faist) and his wife, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a retired player whose meteoric stardom was derailed by injury. Their life is interrupted by Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), Art's former practice partner and Tashi's former boyfriend, whose own professional career is approaching washout status. The film skillfully ping-pongs back and forth in time, filling in the audience on the highs and lows of each relationship and how it shaped the arc of Art and Patrick's rivalry. With each new nugget of narrative context, Guadagnino reveals that Challengers isn't just a war over a woman's affections; it's also a love story between the two men, whose relationship has always existed in the murky nexus between best friends and potential lovers. |
Monday 6th May 2024