“Challengers” Review: The Strengths of Visual Storytelling

Luca Guadagnino demonstrates mastery of the medium in his recent romance turned rabid.

For a relationship as sloppy as the one at the center of this film, Challengers is an effortlessly stylish explosion of controlled chaos taken to the next level. With elite direction by Luca Guadagnino guiding both the camera and stellar performances, Challengers is truly breathtaking in its creative and innovative execution. Never deviating from its themes or commitment to a melodramatic tone, it’s difficult to find a single shot in Challengers that isn’t the best possible means of capturing exactly what Guadagnino hopes to convey to his audiences. And what that is exactly? A romance toxic enough to poison its members, depicted with a tense sensuality that would allure any theater goer. The best part of this equation is an inevitable result: A visionary director, a talented cast, a story so hot it threatens to burn and a camera as mobile as the tennis ball bouncing between the nuanced characters that make it so. While Challengers presents tennis like a binary death match, the winner a king and the loser facing stakes assumedly worse than death, Guadagnino electrically punishes his characters to satisfy the real winner: the audience member lucky enough to see some damn good tennis.

In Challengers, Guadagnino continues to explore love in its most - what some might call interesting - circumstances. Cannibals. Age gaps. Guadagnino is no stranger to strange relationships, and the one consisting of Art (Mike Faist), Patrick (Josh O’Connor), and Tashi (Zendaya) may just prove to somehow be his most toxic yet. However, Challengers is also never a dower experience, far from it in fact. We delight in every snappy line delivered with years of spite; the audience’s gaze is drawn to the drama. The conflict between these three excellently developed characters, all performed brilliantly by their respective actors, matches the cinematography in its momentum and excitement. In fact, conversations become almost as thrilling as the tennis matches themselves; both captured with a camera that proves life really does look better through a lens.

Partially because it allows us to see what one never could in really life. I thought the opening shot was dazzling with its unique high/dutch angle, the following was stunning for its brilliant use of bright pastels, and the one after that for its proximity to a sweaty O’Connor that perfectly captures the intensity one might feel during a match with this much on the line. You get the point, almost every shot is not just aesthetically complete, but a perfect conveyance of the story and its themes. If the camera isn’t working to visually convey as much information as possible, then its either in the middle of a wild movement or placed at an impossible to reach angle to guarantee the audience stays entertained and informed. Cinema is unique for its audio-visual capabilities. With its truly brilliant techniques of visual storytelling, Challengers is thus manifesting what I love about the movies and what makes them unique. It is an absolute feat that a film that continues to surpass itself in style and form can end with a climax that satisfied at all, much less one that doesn’t have a character exchange more than a grunt for upwards of ten minutes. The dominoes were set, and Guadanigno tipped them over with confidence for an ending that solidified Challengers as a masterpiece of the form.

And, truly, I mean every domino was carefully set up. One cannot help but be carried away by the heart pumping score that, when paired with a sexy exchange of glances, says more than any hammy line of dialogue ever could. But that’s just the surface; leitmotifs prove the score is anything but style over substance. There are set ups and pay offs that allow for a-ha moments that had me literally saying a-ha. Shockingly, that was only one of four times I was vocally expressing myself during my viewing; the film itself surpassing the excitement of the very sport its adapting. I left the theater thrilled. Elated. I had to come back for more, no doubt I will be returning to the obsessed trio of artists/athletes I too find myself hooked on. Upon the release, the trailer had people wonder; “really? Tennis?” As stated, Guadagnino usually picks stranger topics, but by the climax, I and every other audience member understood why Tashi was so extreme about the sport. After viewing Challengers, I will certainly always be talking about tennis.