Challengers (2024) review

Professional tennis player Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), who's married to former athlete (and current trainer) Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), has been doing poorly on the court (Art claims he's "rusty") so to sharpen up his game Tashi enrolls him in a tournament in New Rochelle where he competes against long-time frenemy Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), and the movie documents their long multi-year history: playing doubles, making out together, Patrick dating Tashi when she was at Stanford, Tashi damaging her knee, Art becoming famous, etc.  The main cast is lively enough - off-camera, they did extensive training to appear convincing as athletes - but Justin Kuritzkes' screenplay plays around with time to distract from how fundamentally exhausting this "love triangle" actually is, as both men manage to convince themselves they have feelings for Tashi but they're really attracted to each other (if anything, it could act as a warning to the ladies and the fellows they latch onto).  It becomes clear throughout that Guadagnino himself finds some of the dialogue banal, so to try to "spruce" up the exchanges he provides a steady stream of techno/dance music (courtesy of the ever-reliable duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) to basically drown them out ... while paying very close attention to the rivulets of sweat running off the guys' bodies.  At least the last few shots end it on a refreshingly screwy note ... tennis is sex, after all.