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The strapping grandeur of Myron’s Discobolus notwithstanding, it’s weirdly taboo to acknowledge the sensual appeal of athletes. Somehow we’re not supposed to notice the sassy-tight buns of football players in their tiny stretch pants, or the easy bedroom drawl of a basketball player’s limbs. The message seems to be, Sports are serious business! Leave the ogling out of it.
But Luca Guadagnino is here with a benediction in the form of Challengers, a movie that urges us to ogle and sigh and laugh to our heart’s content. There are three major players in this love-triangle fantasia that’s partly about tennis but even more about love and obsession, with dashes of Les Liaisons Dangereuses tossed in. First there’s Mike Faist’s tennis pro and almost-champ Art Donaldson, a guy on a losing streak, his confidence leaking away by the minute. Then there’s Art’s wife, Zendaya’s Tashi Donaldson, a driven young woman who’d been headed for pro glory before a serious injury sidelined her for good; now she lives vicariously as Art’s coach. And last but hardly least is Josh O’Connor’s Patrick Zweig, a onetime tennis hopeful who’s gone to seed. He also happens to be Art’s former best friend, and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend, and there’s some part of his brain that can’t let either of them go.
How does Guadagnino map the relationship between these three, and how does he bring their story to a satisfying, leap-of-joy close? His mode of storytelling doesn’t resemble anything you’d call a straight line; even calling it nonlinear fails to capture its kangaroo energy. It’s better described as a series of springy volleys backward and forward through khbrknews—the movie ping-pongs between 2019 and 2006, with stops in between—that leave you feeling a little dizzy, even a bit punch-drunk.
Read more: The 100 Best Movies of the Past 10 Decades
Working from a script by Justin Kuritzkes, Guadagnino takes…
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