Zendaya in her best role? Why should you see Challengers in the cinema?

What does it talk about ?

During their studies, Patrick and Art fall in love with Tashi. Friends, lovers and rivals at the same time, all three see their paths cross again years later. Their past and present collide and previously unacknowledged tensions resurface.

3 good reasons to see Challengers

Knowing that it was initially supposed to be released on a streaming platform and that it is finally entitled to our theaters may be enough. Otherwise, here are some other good reasons to see Challengers.

1 – Zendaya, world number 1

There is of course Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist (one of the revelations of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story), both brilliant and complementary. But Zendaya shines. Even more than in Malcolm & Marie or Euphoria. From there to saying that this is his best role, there is only one step that we take faster than a service timed at 210km/h.

Her character of Tashi is certainly toxic (like the other members of the central trio), she is not this spectator who successively turns her head towards Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist), as we follow an exchange of tennis. She is the one who calls the shots, both on and off the court. In a story that talks about celebrity and takes us back to the actress herself.

Where everyone plays a game to which they have not necessarily accustomed us until now: “We are lucky to be able to play characters so far from us”tells us Josh O’Connor, whose Patrick is particularly expansive. “Characters who sometimes have qualities that we would like to have. Several times, I said to myself that I would have liked to have the grandiloquent side of Patrick, the blind confidence he has in himself.”

You are divided, confused: you want to love the characters and hate them in the same breath.

“And there is not an ounce of competition in either of my two partners. We were very supportive of each other. But the excitement was there: as soon as we shouted ‘action!’, I became someone another.” “The more I got to know these two, the more I realized we were pretending.”adds Zendaya, laughing.

“When you read a script, you get an idea of ​​what the characters might do and say. And there is the version that you brought to them. Even if you decided that you didn’t like a character, at the time from reading, there is this humanity and this empathy that everyone brings and which makes you say ‘Ah, I actually like them’, no matter the decisions they make.”

“It only complicates things. Because you are divided, confused: you want to love them and hate them in the same breath. It’s also a great proof of their work and what they brought to their respective characters .” We are not going to fall into cliché “Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor like you’ve never seen them before”but not far.

2 – The flawless tennis scenes

Challengers is not as sultry as its trailer suggested. But it’s just as pop. In its editing, which goes back and forth between past and present like players exchanging balls, and gives more echo to the match which constitutes the heart of the intrigue.

And during the tennis scenes precisely. A sport that is not very cinematic (just look at how the matches are filmed on television, in wide, still shots), which some have tried. Like Richard Loncraine (The Most Beautiful Victory), the duo Valerie Faris – Jonathan Dayton (Battle of the Sexes) or even Ridley Scott, with this legendary part between Russell Crowe and Didier Bourdon in A Great Year.

Sometimes using digital tricks, Luca Guadagnino offers us breathtaking, rhythmic, intense sequences in which he tries different things (some of which we will not reveal here, so that the surprise effect works as much as possible) and takes us as far as possible. near the players.

And as he films the verbal exchanges with the same intensity as the tennis scenes (classic but effective process), with characters who throw back incendiary barbs and replies instead of balls, the 2h15 of Challengers has no difficulty in captivate.

3 – Music is fun

This is obvious when we discover, in the end credits, to whom we owe this electro soundtrack: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Who had already made rowing sexy in The Social Network, alongside David Fincher. After Bones and All, the duo finds Luca Guadagnino in a more punchy tone, which greatly contributes to the success of the tennis scenes.

As often since they worked together, the two men bring out classic orchestral scores with unexpected sounds. Which, here, goes well with the sound of balls being returned by a tennis racket.

And a version of the original soundtrack, remixed by German DJ Boys Noize, is available, pending the one heard in the film. All the more reason to see it in theaters.

Comments collected by Maximilien Pierrette in Paris on April 6, 2024