Overview
Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Grand Slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.
I get it. I’ve seen the reviews that said that this movie left a lot more on the table and could have been more this or that. I don’t disagree with those sentiments. But all that aside, I had a ton of fun watching this movie, and I had no right to have this much fun. This movie got away with two things that are often a no-no in my book: extended sports scenes, and time jumps in the story. The time jumps are often performed to make a story more dramatic than it really is, but in this case, the jumps completely worked. I especially enjoyed the investigation of the psyche of the various characters. In particular, the dominance on display in Zendaya’s character. I thought it was fascinating to see her have a stronger will than her partner, only to be called out later as really playing it safe for having a partner that is rather submissive. For me, this was the heart of the movie. It also made it that much more maddening that people’s takeaway from the movie was “who won the final match?”.
IHATEBadMovies.com reviews Challengers
Movie title: Challengers
Movie description: Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Grand Slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.
Date published: 2024-07-18
Director(s): Luca Guadagnino
Actor(s): Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor, Darnell Appling, Bryan Doo, Shane T Harris, Nada Despotovich, Joan Mcshane, Chris Fowler, Mary Joe Fernández, A.J. Lister, Connor Aulson, Doria Bramante, Christine Dye, James Sylva, Kenneth A. Osherow, Kevin Collins, Burgess Byrd, Jason Tong, Hudson Rivera, Noah Eisenberg, Emma Davis, Naheem Garcia, Alex Bancila, Jake Jensen, Konrad Ryba, Hailey Gates, Andrew Rogers, Beverly Kristenson Helton, Brad Gilbert, Sam Xu, Caleb Schneider, Sam Arnold, David S. Bookbinder, Jack Amsler, Lachlan Boyle, Courtney Brooks, Dennis Daniel, Tierre Diaz, Jeffrey Ford, Elaine Victoria Grey, Jason Hewitt, Ian Dylan Hunt, Kagga Jayson, Lizzy Kircher, Bobby Leigh, Donna Martuge, Francis McGinny, Casey McNeal, Nicole Nassif, Patricia Pinto, Anne Reardon, Rhonda Araujo Smith, Juan Szilagyi, Annabella Valle
Genre: Romance, Drama
My Review
I get it. I’ve seen the reviews that said that this movie left a lot more on the table and could have been more this or that. I don’t disagree with those sentiments. But all that aside, I had a ton of fun watching this movie, and I had no right to have this much fun. This movie got away with two things that are often a no-no in my book: extended sports scenes, and time jumps in the story. The time jumps are often performed to make a story more dramatic than it really is, but in this case, the jumps completely worked. I especially enjoyed the investigation of the psyche of the various characters. In particular, the dominance on display in Zendaya’s character. I thought it was fascinating to see her have a stronger will than her partner, only to be called out later as really playing it safe for having a partner that is rather submissive. For me, this was the heart of the movie. It also made it that much more maddening that people’s takeaway from the movie was “who won the final match?”.
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My Review - 8/10
8/10