TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

Next review from Flicks_WithNick is the 2024 tennis movie Challengers. The movie stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, Josh O’Connor as Patrick Zweig, and Mike Faist as Art Donaldson. The movie is directed by Luca Guadagning, who’s most famous directorial is Call me by you Name. The movie currently has an Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%.

The movie starts out with a finals tennis match between Patrick and Mike in a lower tier tournament of the Grand Slams. Art is an all pro, and is in recovery, so uses the lower tier tournament as part of his rehab. We learn that Patrick is broke, and plays tournament after tournament to finance his next move. He needs to win, so he has enough money to go to the next tournament. 

The movie is set up like the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance, where the movie flips back and forth between the finals tennis match, and scenes in the past that led up to the tennis finals. We learn that there’s a love triangle between the two players, and Art’s wife Tashi, that starts when they are teenagers. Through the present day scenes we learn that Tashi is the coach and wife for Art. The flashback scenes we learn all the twists and turns the relationship of all three have gone.

The movie moves very fast between flashbacks, and present scenes. Sometimes it can be confusing, where it can take  you 30 seconds in the scene, to figure out what point in the timeline we are in.

I loved the approach the movie took with the different camera angles during tennis matches. Be prepared for one scene though, the camera follows the tennis ball, and I felt dizzy for a little bit. I’m not the biggest tennis fan, so I’m not sure how believable the tennis scenes panned out to other sports movies. Did the scenes hold up? Or was it more like Halley Berry in Catwoman playing basketball?

I did have issues with some of the music that was used during the movie. I thought they leaned a little too much into the techno music, where it could have been a quiet and romantic scene, but they want you to bob your head like a Night at the Roxbury movie.

Overall I thought this was a brilliant written movie, with great young actors, about love triangles and tennis. I ended up disliking  one of the characters, and all the decisions they’ve made over the years, but I don’t think none of these characters are supposed to be the heros. These three characters all have major flaws, and they all use them to expose each other. 

 The ending might disappoint you, as they leave it open ended. My wife had to look up what it meant, but I believe they want you to make your own decision of how it ended. How do you think the movie ended?

I give this movie a 3.3 out of 5, and definitely worth a watch in the theater. 

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