One could describe great dialogue as like a tennis volley. In the case of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers (dialogue provided by writer Justin Kuritzkes), the simile is essentially literalized. For three tennis players of differing star power, tennis is a contentious conversation, and contentious conversation is rarely far removed from talk of tennis. That is to say, as the relationships between Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) grow more knotty, melodramatic, and complex, the thin line that separates on-court competition from romantic interests is hopelessly blurred.

Frankly, describing this central premise which conflates sports competition and competitive romantic endeavors makes the film sound corny. Aside from one or two glaringly corn-ball moments (including one that happens far too late to be fully forgivable), though, it is electrifying to watch the story of Challengers play out.

This story spans thirteen years in the lives of Tashi, Art, and Patrick. As 18-year-old players in the Junior Open, Art and Patrick win the men’s doubles tournament and Tashi wins the women’s singles. In true hormonal teenage boy fashion, Art and Patrick are smitten by the sight of Tashi (and her tennis skills). They begin a friendly competition to get her number, which results in an unexpected romantic encounter.

A year later, Patrick is dating Tashi, who is attending Stanford with Art. The petty romantic dramas of youth collide with a larger, existential crisis when Tashi injures her knee in a match, seriously jeopardizing her chances of going pro. The two men in her orbit uneasily shift positions as she struggles to cope with her future being altered.

Meanwhile, the film is cutting forward in time. In 2019, Art is a relatively well-known professional tennis player, but his age and lack of competitive spirit have hampered his ability to win. Patrick, on the other hand, is well outside the top 100 players, and he is still trying to compete for a spot in the U.S. Open despite not having enough money to rent a hotel room at tournament sites. The two former teammates enter the same Challenger tournament with divergent goals. Art needs easy wins to get his mojo back; Patrick desperately needs to win games just to afford food and a bed.

In the grand scheme of fictional narratives, Challengers does not cover a large scope. It is a very insulated story about minor choices that greatly impact the lives of these three tennis players. All the same, the film is shot and scored like an epic spectacle. Dramatic zooms and even more dramatic camera angles heighten the already heightened emotions of scenes. And the peppering in of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s thrumming, synthy score produces sudden moments of heart-racing pace in otherwise conventional scenes of conversation.

On the court, Guadagnino is even more ostentatious. The cinematography of Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, which includes queasy POV shots from the players’ perspective (and, in one case, the ball’s perspective), is a disorienting mix of wide shots and extremely tight close-ups of body parts. It is an initially fascinating take on sports filmmaking, in that it throws out tradition in favor of sheer sensory stimuli. After a time, though, I found myself preferring the straightforward wides to the audacious POVs and closeups. At a certain point, I preferred to see the tennis speak for itself, without all the cinematic dizziness.

Some choices that come late in the script also nagged me from a character motivation standpoint. For a film that is so immersed in the interpersonal relationship between three characters, all of whom have very specific drives that produce the film’s tension, a couple of the choices made in the final act rang somewhat hollow to me. In one specific case, a choice is made by Tashi that only feels motivated by a script’s need to maintain a conflict so that the climax will work effectively. The climax does work, in spite of this and in spite of a borderline silly final few shots, but the build-up to it stumbles some.

What makes it easy to forgive these minor issues is the film’s cast. Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor give the best performances I’ve seen this year to date (Katy O’Brien in Love Lies Bleeding is hanging around in this conversation, as well). Love triangles in fiction are often formulaic and boring (in my opinion); here, Guadagnino and the cast succeed at making the love triangle the entire film.

Challengers: B+

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)