Challengers (2024) Directed by Luca Guadagnino
4A
As a tennis player (well, former tennis player) you might think i would look forward to movies with tennis backstories, but I don't. There are usually two of me watching the film at the same time. The tennis me is picking out all the flaws, especially in the actual tennis playing. The only movie that I have ever seen that gets the tennis right is
King Richard, so it is a rare occurrence indeed.
Challengers does a better job than most at this but still falls well short of being convincing. To make matters far worse, the effort at tennis realism is compromised even more egregiously by the excessively loud sound of tennis balls virtually exploding every time that they are struck and by the exaggerated effort the players display when striking the ball, like pit bulls straining on a leash. This gets annoying very fast, and not just on the ear drums. The rest of the movie is about a tennis
menage a trois told in a constant mishmash of flashbacks (Guadagnino's exertions only made me recall how infinitely better Alain Resnais was at this sort of thing). But I enjoyed the story part of the way. Our threesome has an early meeting on a beach that crackles with nascent desire and demonstrates how emotionally disconcerting those initial feelings can be. But, then, I really hated the last third of the movie. In fact, I would say that
Challengers is the most overdirected movie that I have seen in years.
For starters, the tennis player in me couldn't believe the central premise of the rivalry, that a six-time Grand Slam champion, who probably spent a lot of time at number 1 or 2 in the world, could be totally owned by a player ranked #271 who never had the ambition to get out of Challenger tournaments, the AHL of tennis competitions. But beyond that there are several ultra annoying directorial unforced errors, including the vast overuse of blaring music to hype scenes and turn up the intensity, to the point that sometimes the dialogue was inaudible. Then there was the slow, excruciating build up once the final match was underway. I found that tedious as hell--like stretching a rubber band to the breaking point for no particular reason at all. On top of which we have a very stupid open ending that tells us nothing that we don't already know but leaves several plot developments thoroughly up in the air. As well, somebody should have explained to Guadagnino that whoever touches the net automatically loses the point, or maybe that was just a detail he didn't care about anyway in his rush to an exasperating conclusion. Zendaya and Josh O'Connor are very good playing characters that I liked less and less as the movie progresses, and Mike Faist is good, also, with a character who has his share of flaws as well. But this movie pissed me off from both my perspectives, and, despite the occasionally snappy dialogue, I think basically Guadagnino sank his own ship here.
