Tennis isn’t my go-to sport. I will watch it occasionally, and I have played it in the past, but it’s not a sport that makes me sit for hours while Wimbledon is on. There have been few films that have won me over, either. Battle of the Sexes with Emma Stone and Steve Carell was good. Wimbledon, with Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst, didn’t really ignite for me, and as for Players with Ali McGraw from the 70s, let’s move on quickly. Now we have Challengers, the new film from acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino, who gave us Call Me By My Name, Bones and All and Suspiria. He managed something remarkable: he’s made tennis both exciting and sexy.

Tashi is an up-and-coming superstar in tennis. A major player, she soon gets the attention of her best friends, Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig. This soon becomes an infatuation, with the pair longing to win her affection. Yet over the years, and with an injury ending a promising career, they become entangled in a web of love, lust, and rivalry that is pulling them apart.

The film uses flashbacks to tell the traumatic tale. Starting with a tennis final, as the friends take each other on while Tashi sits and watches from the stands, you immediately feel the rivalry between the two men. Yet this isn’t just a competition but a war throughout their lives. The film then takes us back and forth in their time since first meeting Tashi, returning to the match, which parallels their personal struggles. Guadagnino cleverly uses time with the same beats of the game, as one wins an integral part of the story, represented in the final match.

We learn about these friends and how their lives change when the pair watches this wonder on the court. An evening in their hotel room, where Tashi manages to manipulate the men into a closeness they didn’t realise, gives the film its homoerotic tone that manages to run throughout. This is a steamy film that doesn’t need nudity or explicit sexual scenes. Guadagnino fills the screen with tension, both in the sporting form and sexual. It’s a film where you feel like you leave the cinema covered in sweat, dripping from the players. It’s also a complex character study of how passion and longing can pull even the strongest people apart.

Then you have the tennis and for the first time, watching the game is exciting. If the BBC were to take on the camera work seen here, the game would be explosive. Guadagnino puts the camera everywhere, from extreme close-ups to body cams to having it from the ball’s point of view and even from underneath the court. This is a director who knows how to make cinema both exciting and has the power to create story and character.

It is also helped by a powerhouse soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. At first, it is intrusive and overpowering; with its electronic score, this plays just as important a part in the story as all the elements, capturing the passion and tension between the leading players. It does come across as jarring, but it works magnificently with the rest of the film.

The performances are exceptional. Mike Feist, so good in Spielberg’s West Side Story, is terrific as Art, the quieter and less confident of the friends. You feel that he is the one who would be betrayed the easiest, and yet, in his journey, he is one of the winners in the game of love. Josh O’Connor, who scored highly in God’s Own Country and as Prince Charles in The Crown, is deliciously caddish as Patrick, a more complex character who has a careless attitude and will use anyone. In one scene, he picks up a woman from a dating app to get a roof over his head for the night. He has more to prove.

At the heart of the film is Zendaya. An actress known more for playing second fiddle in huge blockbusters like Dune and the Spider-Man movies, she explodes as Tashi. She is a powerhouse of womanhood, who says early in the film that she is not a housewrecker, yet that is precisely what she does. She uses her position, not only as a tennis superstar but her feminine charms to crowbar herself between these two friends. She ignites the screen with such power and energy that this is the start of a fantastic career if she chooses suitable projects.

Challengers is an art-house movie for a commercial audience. It’s a gripping drama with some tennis thrown in for good measure. The more I think about it, the more I think this is an innovative, intelligent masterpiece. It deserves to be up there as one of the year’s best. It also has one of the best endings to a movie I have seen in ages.

5 out of 5

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Starring: Zendaya, Mike Feist, Josh O’Connor, Darnell Appling, Bryan Doo, Nada Despotovich, A.J. Lister, Joan McShane.

Written by: Justin Kuritzkes

Running Time: 131 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 26th April 2024