Review 720: Challengers

  

Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a tennis player turned coach has transformed her husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) from a mediocre tennis player into a world-famous grand slam champion. To jolt him out of a losing streak, she makes him play a challenger event - close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour. Tensions soon run high when he finds himself standing across the net from once promising, now burnt out Patrick Zweig (The Crown's Josh O'Connor), his former best friend and Tashi former boyfriend.

Ultimately, Challengers is a film about relationships and power  It is a sports film (in genre, not narrative)

Relationships: The central core of Challengers is the love triangle between Zendaya's Tashi, Mike Faist's Art and Josh O'Connor's Patrick.  Eventually it gets to the point where they lean on each other in the most unhealthy ways. The rules of the game become the rules of seduction.  They're united by their love of Tennis and the sport is really their outlet they choose to express their chaos.

But the rest of the screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes is really quite simple.  

The tennis scenes are outstanding they have a visceral feel and a grit that you just get from other films of this genre all set to a fantastically rousing techno score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor are terrific in this film,

I only just reminded myself that Faist also played Riff in Spielberg's West Side Story from a few years ago and it's easy to see why he was chosen for this part 

Josh O'Connor also impressed playing Patrick