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In the past I have got very excited about films where the stories they spin and the particular audience experience they provide could only really be delivered through the medium of cinema. To me these movies properly celebrate what this art form that I love so much can do, and examples include works like Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity with its incredible off-world visuals that are so key to the narrative, and recently The Zone of Interest where the sound production is essential to the power and impact of its message.

Now here, with Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, we have a film that relays a relatively straight plot around three professional tennis players in a complex decade and a half long love triangle, something that you might think would work best on the page, but is precisely structured and edited in such a way that you similarly cannot imagine it being told using any other narrative tool. This is not a big special effects movie or a historical epic with a specific recreation of a singular time and place, it is just a sports and relationship drama, yet it is cinematic story telling of the absolute highest order. It is as captivating as any character piece, as thrilling as the best action adventure, and as rewarding an audio/visual encounter as you are likely to get on the big screen.

There are two elements to this. The first is the director’s spectacular use of his filmic toolbox. It is never overbearing, although it perhaps comes close, but the imaginative POVs, the intimate close-ups, the intricate shot composition and the careful framing are relentless. Never gimmicky and masterfully balanced, this is a very skilfully constructed movie.

Then there is the choice made by Guadagnino, and possibly writer Justin Kuritzkes, to build the whole chain of events around one particular tennis match. The way this intercuts with the history of the three players and the tension it maintains are brilliant. Any quieter moments we see are like pauses before the serve and the crescendos of their lives and those in this one game become wonderfully synchronised. Credit also to Kuritzkes for the dialogue which has the subtly and surprising strength of the best backhand and zips back and forth between the people delivering it perfectly. There is clearly metaphor in the sport featured but it is not laboured and all just adds to the immersive viewing experience. The intricacies of this racquet sport may not make up a huge part of the film, the Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany romcom Wimbledon probably gets into the technique of tennis more, but it is woven in to plot perfectly.

Incidentally, while this is his first screenplay Justin Kuritzkes may already be known to cinema fans as he is married to Celine Song, the writer/director of last year’s Past Lives. If you’ve seen that largely autobiographical film you’ll definitely feel like you’ve met him in some sense before.

The three central performances from Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist and Zendaya are all superb too. Following this I am sure each of them will go on to bigger things, which is saying something when one was Prince Charles in The Crown, one just worked with Spielberg and one is Zendaya, but it’s going to be some time until they get a movie like this. There is one scene where Zendaya just says so much with a simple shifting facial expression and O’Connor is almost bestial and buttoned up at the same time.

On seeing the trailer I thought this film was some sort or carnal sex drama but the good reviews lead me to see it. It isn’t that at all though, so let my good review lead you to see it too. This is an excellent movie.

Note the Spider-Man reference too. They may not have got Zendaya in the Spider-Verse but they brought the Spider-Verse to her.

Oh, and the soundtrack is my new running playlist.

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The Ripley Factor:

Luca Guadagnino doesn’t appear to be consciously interested in feminist issues but his films are still curious when viewed through this lens. Call Me by Your Name was a man dominated story examining key male relationships but the women in it offered support and some wisdom. Suspiria by contrast had an almost entirely female cast, one of who also played the main male character, but seemed a bit exploitative in outdated ways.

Accidentally or otherwise, this one feels like it gets it right. There is a different version of this story where Zendaya’s Tashi is a cliched femme fatale. As it is though she is a flawed, complex and fascinating person with great agency. There is a moment at the end where it looks like the events that she has tried so hard to control are getting out of her hands. Then in the very last shot this is reversed and the end of this long game apparently goes right in her favour.