Movie Review: Challengers
A Tribute To The Absurd
On the way walking out of the theater, a girl ahead of me turned to her friend and said, “…that wasn’t a movie about tennis,”—and she’s right.
Sure, there’s tennis in the movie. The seductive draw of the sport combined Zendaya’s ethnically ambiguous universal appeal is certainly what put asses in the seats. But mostly the movie uses “the Game of Kings, the King of Games” as a Trojan Horse.
The best term to describe the entire thing is gratuitous.
Every element of the film is a ridiculous serving of over-the-top. We laughed out loud multiple times—and it’s not really meant to be a comedy (it’s described by Yahoo! Entertainment as a “relationship drama”).
Whether by sly innuendo or by the subtlety of a flamethrower, hardly any two characters manage to share a single exchange that is anything less than drenched in sexual tension. Often male on male. Often in very close physical proxmity over and over again. I’m all for close male friendships, but I’m sorry—nobody is chummy with their friend like this.
They eat bananas! They eat churros! They very obviously play with the phallic nature of the tennis racquet grip! They quite literally kiss each other on the mouth! A lot!
Also, there’s more full male nudity than any other movie I’ve ever seen. Back and front. And there’s really no problem with that—but, male or female—I think any nudity in a film should be clearly necessary/ additive otherwise it feels a bit forced and eyes start to roll.
There’s more SUPER slow motion than Planet Earth. Shots that are probably 32x slo-mo—and drag on for a while—made me wonder if they were truly on purpose or an oversight in editing.
The tennis sound effects—court squeaking, the pop of the tennis ball on the strings, the guttural near-sexual grunting of tennis combat—the sounds grab you by the collar and smack you upside the head.
Admittedly, the score slaps. The music is so good you’re left with little choice but to dance-in-your-seat to it, and when the dust settles I imagine it will be the most memorable part of this project. The industrial techno superteam of Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor have yet to disappoint on that front—having collaborated on The Social Network, Gone Girl, Waves, Soul, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Watchmen, and more.
Zendaya is hot in a strange and particular way. She’s hot in precisely the same way that lots of female tennis players are. It’s a very specific type of hot: where you can spend hours looking at her and not quite be decided whether she’s an absolute stunner—or if you’re just convincing yourself due to sheer captive exposure. Sexiness Stockholm Syndrome.
Overall I thought it was entertaining and funny but probably not for the reasons the director intended. There are a few really well-written moments but they’re a bit overshadowed by the absurdity of the rest of it.