CHALLENGERS (2024)
a review by Evan Landon
Do you think tennis is a boring sport? Well, that is because it is. Next, is it really considered a sport? I mean, as much as golf is, I suppose. Now, is this movie about tennis entertaining? Marinate with that for a second. Seriously.
I would not say Challengers is a movie about tennis necessarily, but a love triangle between a bunch of nepo-babies who just happen to play tennis. If the fact that these kids have never had to live a day of work in their lives, you can see where these main actors get their inspiration from. They do not have to draw too heavily from the well of their acting chops, if you catch my drift.
Writer Justin Kuritzkes brings his awkward penning of a script about characters that nobody can relate to, as well as throwing his own uninteresting take on it whilst dragging the bloated corpse of whatever has become of director Luca Guadagnino's homoerotic filmography (Call Me By Your Name, We Are Who We Are, and the upcoming Queer based on the 1985 novella by Willaim S. Burroughs). There is nothing wrong with homoeroticism, don't get me wrong; it is in plenty of movies I have seen over the course of my years that are just fine. I don't mind it. However, when it seems to be the only reason that a person makes any movie, you start to realize that it is no longer just a kink for the filmmaker; it is a mission to no longer resolve underlying themes, but bring them right up to the surface to where the viewer cannot even admire subtleties and nuances of true art that allows the audience to subvert their attention. That is where I have an issue.
Of course, who am I to judge what “true art” is? A lot of my friends have told me that this was the bestest movie that they saw this year and I suppose I could see that from their perspectives. Maybe that is the “true art” of Challengers: to throw uncertainty into a banal ideal with the only certainty is that of convoluted drama and a script that makes as much sense as the back of a Count Chocula cereal box.
If you like seeing a bunch of spoiled, midgrade children try to find out if they are gay or not, constantly manipulated by a girl who obviously gets nothing but kicks out of pairing her ex-boyfriend and husband into having an affair, this might be the movie for you. Sometimes, they play tennis.
The acting is fine, if you don't mind Zendaya dry humping two guys that are heavily objectified or the fact that everyone looks like they have been sweating even when they aren't. The cinematography is interesting for the most part (a torrential storm during a supposed break-up), then just laughable at times (the perspective of a tennis ball). Since the soundtrack is scored by the great Trent Reznor, it starts off very intense, then just feels like the same fucking beat over and over again that I would not be surprised if he just fell asleep on his keyboard scoring this.
With an overall budget of $55 million, you have to really wonder where all that money went, but when you see how much it took to get Zendaya involved, it is not too difficult to see where the film hemorrhaged funds. It did pull in $96 million worldwide, so I suppose it could be considered a moderate success.
All-in-all, if this movie makes you want to go outside and be somewhat active, then this movie actually did something positive.
2 Out Of 5