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‘Challengers’ Review - Luca Guadagnino and Zendaya Serve Up a Smart and Sexy Tennis Drama About Three Players in Search of the Perfect Match
‘Challengers’ Review - Luca Guadagnino and Zendaya Serve Up a Smart and Sexy Tennis Drama About Three Players in Search of the Perfect Match
The intransigent Zoomer modernity of Zendaya’s screen image — a face that, because of “Euphoria,” will probably always seem to me as if it’s “seen an iPhone” — is the perfect foil for a role so rooted in pre-Code comedies like “Design for Living,” and she harnesses that disconnect in a way that allows Tashi to have this entire movie by the balls without ever foot-faulting into invulnerability.
There isn’t an inch of nudity apart from some extras in the locker room showers, and yet Guadagnino shoots the climactic match with a stylistic vulgarity that suggests what sports might look like if Brazzers suddenly took over for ESPN. Slo-mo, Wong Kar-wai-esque step-printing, floor-angle shots from underneath the court, racket POV shots, ball POV shots … every point is defined by a different technique, each rally existing within its own self-contained universe in which sex doesn’t exist and tennis is the only form of human expression.
·indiewire.com·
‘Challengers’ Review - Luca Guadagnino and Zendaya Serve Up a Smart and Sexy Tennis Drama About Three Players in Search of the Perfect Match