"Challengers"

 ☆☆☆☆ 

The poster for Challengers wants you to believe that the star of the movie is Zendaya, the mononymous performer who two years ago was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people in the world. She sits at the center of Challengers, the absorbing, hyperactive new film by Luca Guadagnino, who made the absorbing, languid Call Me By Your Name in 2017.

"Her Game. Her Rules," one of the posters for Challengers says, making it clear beyond all doubt that this is not in any way a gay movie. And yet, Challengers often feels more boldly gay than even Guadagnino's earlier, dreamily homoerotic movie. Yes, Zendaya's Tashi Duncan sits at the center of a love triangle; yes, she uses her physical appearance to flirt with and ultimately bed two men; and, yes, they are each vying for her attention ... well, ostensibly.

That's when Challengers gets really interesting, not exclusively from a gay point of view, though largely. Here is a film that does not shy from acknowledging the far-reaching sexual interests of its main characters, and that does much, much more than suggest that the two men (Mike Faist, the fair-haired; Josh O'Connor, the dark) who are enamored of Tashi are equally smitten with each other. Maybe more.

The place Challengers starts seems to be simple: Tashi watches these two men in a tennis match. Almost instantly, we're pushed back two weeks, and then another 13 years, to the night these characters all first encountered each other. The screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes volleys back and forth in time like a tennis ball, daring us to keep up with it. (At one critical point, I finally broke down and had to admit I wasn't quite sure when was happening up on screen, though it also no longer seemed to matter.)

Faist's Art Donaldson and O'Connor's Patrick Zweig are best friends. They share everything with each other. They may, the movie implies, have shared even more. But one thing is clear: Each is smitten by the other, and never once does Challengers suggest they shouldn't be. When they meet Tashi, the race to bed her seems more a desire to impress each other.

As they jockey for position, Challengers kept bringing to mind the odd, repressed sexual games that characters in Hitchcock movies played, and it it's worth noting that the only characters we see kiss each other with intensity or get naked around each other are the two men. The story progresses, moving back and forth in time as first Tashi seems on the cusp of stardom, then Patrick and, finally, Art. Each is trying to outdo the other. Life for them is a competition. Winning is everything—but not winning the game, rather winning the approval, favor and love of the other.

Though there are more than a few moments in which Challengers is set in a world of luxury and glamour, neither it nor its characters are interested in material possessions—they want to possess and control each other. Despite its outwardly beautiful imagery (like all Guadagnino films, it's obsessed with sensual depictions of the world), Challengers is infinitely more interesting in exploring the emotional workings of people who know they are always playing a game.

The most fascinating part of the movie turns out to be that we're never quite sure exactly what game is being played. Just when we have it figured out, Challengers offers an ending that hits the ball right back into the place it began, with a deliciously ambiguous final shot that could mean just about anything.

The boldness of the game it's playing is really the point—it is irrelevant who wins, as long as everyone has a great time at the game. Challengers turns out not, despite her presence on the poster, to be about Zendaya and her rules, but about all three of these beautiful, manipulative people and the games they play with each other. Watching them is like watching a modern tennis match: You may get whiplash from turning your neck at the ball's impossible speeds, but you can't take your eye on the damn thing, anyway.

Viewed: May 25, 2024 — AMC Universal 16

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