
The real challenge is getting through all that drama
dir: Luca Guadagnino
2024
Well. That was… something.
I’m not entirely sure what. I feel like I’ve been tricked by a film again, but I can’t accuse it of a bait-and-switch, because the bait was “hot young tennis players in steamy love triangle”, which was never that appealing, and the “switch”, given the ending, is “absolutely nothing.”
My one point of interest in watching this is that Luca Guadagnino is making interesting films, sometimes with Tilda Swinton, sometimes, like this one, without. I think there’s an aspect of the film that REALLY interested or energised him greatly, which is the relationship between Patrick and Art (Josh O’Connor who is trying to be in everything currently, and Mike Faist), there’s an aspect that somewhat interests him, being the motivations and machinations of le femme athlétique Tashi (Zendaya).
And then there’s… I dunno, a lot of hollow nonsense to fill out the already lengthy running time. This is definitely one of those films that feels longer than what the clock tells you. Though having said that, I wasn’t really bored, but I wasn’t really enraptured either.
This flick tells a story about three people in a non-linear way, having something happen in the “present”, then thirteen years in the past, and then it jumps all over the place with the lynchpin being what’s happening at a low grade tournament in New Rochelle, New York, proudly sponsored by Phil’s Tyre Town. It will then jump randomly weeks before, hours before, days before, a decade again, and you think it’s building towards explanation or meaning, but you realise the revelations of the past don’t really amount to much.
I mean, there’s info we want to know, somewhat. Like, we might be curious as to how and why Tashi went from a world-class player to a coach living through her husband’s success, when she was so driven and fixated on success. We wonder why Patrick is pretty much homeless, despite that charming smile and those sticky-outy ears of his.
And there also might be moments we wonder as to… what the fuck is up with the soundtrack? I mean, I can’t actually in all fairness blame Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch for the placement of the musical pieces in the film – that’s entirely the director and producers’ fault, who, whatever they were thinking, should have thought again and again and decided something different, but they’re pretty aggressively annoying as well. It’s a surprise; they usually give good soundtrack.
But fuck no, not for this actively annoying flick. It’s another bold decision to not have any likable characters in the flick. I mean, they were okay when they were young, in the flashbacks, as in they didn’t seem like complete arseholes in those bits just yet, but that can’t last forever, can it?
They grow up to be some pretty uninteresting people. Maybe success and failure can do that to you.
If there’s something formative, or important that we’re meant to get from the flashback scenes involving both of these stupid boys mooning over Tashi, and then both trying to shoot their shot, is that Tashi, seemingly enjoying the power she has over them, decides the best way to use it is to get Pat and Art to make out with each other, as a way of either dominating them or confirming her suspicion that they’re secretly in love with each other. But from there, seeing as it is the night before a final where Pat and Art are playing against each other (after just having won a doubles final together), she essentially tells them she’ll have sex with the winner.
People have fought for less. Men have died for less. Women have too much sense, but it’s certainly a prime motivator.
It doesn’t really matter, to me, who wins, because that’s not the crux of the matter. The crux is that Patrick and Art have been friends since they were twelve, and have lived together essentially since then. We know, or at least are told repeatedly that they are close, closer than brothers. Hell, they’ve even jerked off together.
Tashi sees that bond, and immediately thinks about breaking it, and in fact whether intentional or not the result of the final and the way the boys compete for her does drive a wedge between them that only gets more pronounced over time. Art actively starts hanging around Tashi and telling her lies about Patrick’s wanton ways, and when Pat and Tashi hear all this, they’re not “stop it with your lies and your bullshit”, they’re more like “wow, look who’s the big man, stepping up to the plate.”
There’s something else that I, in my genteel and aristocratic fashion, would prefer that I didn’t actually have to write about in the course of a review, critique, word salad or whatever the fuck this really is, but I think the director really wanted us to notice, because he brings it up so many times. It’s also meant to be one of the reasons why Patrick, for all his lack of success as a professional athlete still has swagger for days. Patrick’s dick is a source of consternation and delight, depending on who you are. He even uses it to unnerve, and, who knows, maybe titillate Art in the sauna the night before the Big Match that the film has been building up to for over two hours.
And it has the exact effect Patrick intended, along with his cheeky grin. That grin says less to me about who the character is, and more about the actor Josh O’Connor not being able to believe that he gets paid to do this onscreen, and doesn’t even have to whip it out entirely.
Not like that poor Barry Keoghan in Saltburn, oh no,
O’Connor seems like he’s the only one enjoying himself in this flick. Zendaya is a great actor, no shade being thrown in her direction, but I didn’t feel like the director was as interested in her as he was in the boys, because while she gets the lion’s share of the good lines, she spends a lot of the time with a look on her face that conveys more about indigestion that it does anything about her perplexity over the choices before her.
At the stage of life where the Tashi and Art characters are at, Art has won a number of grand slams, but the US Open eludes him. He’s not the best in the world, but he’s done well enough that corporate interests put both of their faces on massive billboard posters that eclipse entire buildings with their bland expressions. That poster we see, a number of times, with the words “Game Changers” floating ghost-like between her face on the left and Art’s face on the right, is one we saw her give final edits to, for, whatever it is. Luxury watches? Luxury cars? Luxury car watches?
It’s all the same to me, but you really get the sense that at least in her eyes every scrap of Art’s success on and off the courts has been brutally stage-managed by her, and wouldn’t exist otherwise. She has lived vicariously through Art and now gets to enjoy all the benefits, without, you know, actually winning anything herself. Which is a damn shame, because she is nothing if not competitive.
But what she actually thinks of the two guys is still a mystery to me. I find it hard to believe that she cares about either of them, because even though they are the only two people she seems to have ever known in her life, there are other men even in the world of this flick.
That’s another thing – surely she could have found someone better than Art and way better than Patrick? Why wouldn’t she have latched herself on to Rafa or, well, not Federer, but maybe, I dunno, Andy Murray, nah, too nice. Definitely not Djokovic, because he’s a fucking idiot, and the rest… well, there are some people to work with there.
And then there’s the women’s rankings to sift through, for killer instinct, eye of the tiger, all that.
Instead she’s saddled, apparently, with these being the only two mopes in the whole world for her.
I wouldn’t call what happens in this flick a drama, because none of it is handled seriously. It is purest melodrama instead, punctuated with absurd and awful music choices in key moments, intentionally alienating the audience and making us question our choices almost more than Tashi does.
I find it really hard to articulate this, but she seems torn by her desire for wealth, stability, foundations, brunch, and her kid on one side, and sweaty Patrick who lives in his car on the other, which isn’t really a choice. If Art wins he has a shot at the US Open finally, but it’s his last shot, because he wants to retire. If Patrick wins…he gets to stick it to Art the way he stuck it to Tashi the night before?
Some viewers will be ropable at how the film ends. Like, they will exhale with disgust and say out loud “well that was a waste of fucking time”. I will honestly say that I found it somewhat audacious, in that, fucking hell, that’s the ending? But on the other hand I also see what he’s saying, in that the other stuff, the alleged big picture stuff doesn’t really matter, and the most important thing is getting the boys back together?
Who fucking knows? Well, Luca Guadagnino presumably knows, and so should Zendaya, because she’s produced the flick as well. She had money riding on the outcome of this flick, more so than the tournament. I don’t think the attractive goons at the centre of the flick have any idea what’s going on around them.
I cannot say that I enjoyed this flick, that much, but I can say that I respect what it was trying to do. Getting young people to act like sexy idiots is not that hard, but weaving it all together with a farcical story about people doing absolutely anything in order to one up someone else, well, that takes real skill.
There’s a lot of goofy cinematography in this flick, even ‘shots’ from the tennis ball’s perspective, which is ludicrous, but even if somewhat over-edited, at least all three of them are made to look like actual tennis players. Especially Tashi when still playing, who takes every shot like she’s trying to kill the other person with her racquet.
7 times some people will find the real challenge to be getting to the end of this potboiler of a flick out of 10
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“It is, actually. For about fifteen seconds there, we were actually playing tennis. And we understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It's like we were in love. Or like we didn't exist. We went somewhere really beautiful together.” – and then back down here to mundane reality with the rest of us - Challengers
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