The Spire

Will Donahue ‘24

Chief Copy Editor

Challengers is about tennis. Not the sport, mind you. Even director Luca Guadagnino had little interest in the sport of tennis before making this movie (Empire). But to paraphrase Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan, tennis is more than a sport. Tennis is a relationship: two people learning about each other, gaining advantages, gaining disadvantages, going back and forth until a climactic victory. This is the tennis at the heart of Challengers. The sport itself is mostly decorative; what the movie explores most intensely is the relationship between its lead characters, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) – two former best friends whose shared athletic interests give rise to companionship, competition, and more than a little homoeroticism.

This relationship (and the movie at large) would have fallen apart without the actors having lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry. Thankfully, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor have just that. They ensure that every moment between Art and Patrick – the friendly moments, the combative moments, the sexually tense moments – is layered with backstory and authenticity. Of course, nothing in this movie would work without Tashi in the middle of it all. As with the other two points of the love triangle, Tashi calls for a pitch-perfect performance to keep the all-important chemistry afloat. In her first ever leading film role, Zendaya proves that she is up for that challenge and more.

The actual plot is simple, though the movie’s nonlinear storytelling does complicate it (and at times, convolute it). This is essentially the story of Art and Patrick preparing to face off in a challenger event – both as athletic rivals and romantic rivals. Tashi is both an instigator and a bystander in this dynamic, inspiring the men to fight each other while she fulfills her deepest desire to “watch some good f–ing tennis.” What follows is an enthralling decades-spanning saga of her moving back and forth between the two, beginning with one “throuple” encounter in a hotel room – one of the most gripping and sexually charged scenes of the year thus far. 

Indeed, the sexual tension between Art and Patrick – whether in the form of physical touch, phallic imagery, or straight-up kissing – transforms their rivalry into a truly unique depiction of male athleticism. There is perhaps no one more qualified than the director of Call Me by Your Name to inject homoeroticism into tennis, a sport so intimate that sexual tension feels about as natural as leg injuries or distracting product placement (which is to say, it’s incredibly natural). With every pained groan, every close-up of a sweaty face, and every high-speed camera movement from the perspective of a tennis ball in motion, Luca Guadagnino effectively illustrates the physicality of the sport – and the inherent eroticism that blossoms between its players.

Copy edited by Colette Potter