.png)
(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
BUY TICKETS TO CHALLENGERS VIA THE SURESEATS WEBSITE HERE: https://www.sureseats.com/theaters/movies.asp?event=13952
There is a magnetic, majestic power to personal intensity. When we see it in the way people focus on their passion, their art, or goals, it can be an aphrodisiac. And when we feel it in the way they approach love and desire, intensity becomes an advantage — even if we’re not sure who rises and who falls from it. Watching the volley between extremes can be mesmerizing. And watching one person exercise her power is seductive.
Directed by Academy Award ® and BAFTA nominated visionary filmmaker LUCA GUADAGNINO (Call Me By Your Name, I Am Love, Suspiria, A Bigger Splash, Bones and All), CHALLENGERS is a modern, exciting story with a sleek, stylized look courtesy of cinematographer SAYOMBHU MUKDEEPROM (Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria), with a memorably propulsive score by two-time Oscar ® winners TRENT REZNOR and ATTICUS
ROSS (The Social Network, Pixar’s Soul) and dynamic costumes from esteemed international designer JONATHAN ANDERSON.
Tashi Duncan (played by ZENDAYA — one of her era’s most electrifying performers and star of Dune Parts One and Two, Spider-Man trilogy, and two-time Emmy ® winner for Euphoria) is fueled by talent and intensity. The young tennis star’s ferocity in her sport matches her physicality, self-confidence, and inner power.
When her tennis contemporaries Patrick Zweig (JOSH O’CONNOR, The Crown) and Art Donaldson (MIKE FAIST, West Side Story) see Tashi in action on the court early in her career, the two best friends are entranced — and though Patrick and Art have known each other since they were pre-teen roommates at a tennis academy, competition kicks in. Tashi, savvier than Art and Patrick though all three are just 18 years old, is aware of everything…even things Art and Patrick don’t see, or don’t want to see.
(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Thus begins a journey that takes Tashi, Art, and Patrick to places none of them expected to go, as CHALLENGERS bounces through a dynamic, interweaving storyline that travels back and forth in these characters’ lives, framed by a revelatory “challengers” tennis match between Art and Patrick that takes place 13 years since they met Tashi — after an injury changed her trajectory, after Art and Tashi married and had a daughter, after Patrick
makes Tashi and Art reconsider everything. Through a narrative that volleys between the early aughts and 2019, we see the paths they took, the games they played, and the passion they followed. It’s Tashi’s power, emotionally and romantically, that both pivots and anchors the connection they all have.
CHALLENGERS has a nonlinear style, but that connection between the characters is clear and compelling. When we meet them, Patrick and Art are choosing between college and careers, having been roommates at a tennis boarding school since they were 12. Best friends and friendly rivals, the two are known on the tennis circuit as “Fire
& Ice.” When they meet Tashi, she’s already a star ascending — fast — and her magnetism on the court precedes her. As Tashi enters their lives, a rivalry for her affection splits Patrick and Art apart, even as she makes them realize the love that anchors their friendship.
Tashi and Patrick become a couple; later, she and Art date and marry, as the
guys break off contact with each other even as they’re all are at the same events and in the sports world. Then, at a match that provides the film with its through line and present-day setting, Patrick and Art face off, as Tashi — ever in control — watches. And the revelations we’ve seen explains every emotion on their faces.
“There were so many things that made me want to do this movie,” says director Luca Guadagnino. “Certainly, my complete worship of producer Amy Pascal is one of the most important reasons! The second reason was a very brilliant script by Justin Kuritzkes that had a great voice — it was so humorous and piercing. And the premise of the story — people who are complicated and who never really want to put things in place but in fact make things more complicated for themselves — was even better.”
“The complications of a relationship fascinate me,” continues Guadagnino. “Relationships come with control over the other, but at the end of the day, they also come with control within yourself. Those were elements that for me were very important. I didn’t know anything about tennis, but my job as a filmmaker is to study and discover things
I didn’t know before. It was a great opportunity for me to understand how the dynamic of desire, and the dynamics of control and self-control, are mirrored in the beauty and athleticism of the game of tennis.”
(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
“When we first talked to Luca about directing the movie, Luca said, ‘I don’t know much about tennis, but I know a lot about desire,’” says producer RACHEL O’CONNOR (Little Women, The Post, Spider-Man trilogy). “Luca wanted the world of the film and the emotions to be very real and compelling,” Says ZENDAYA, who also produced the film, “Luca has such a great way of looking at each character in CHALLENGERS through such an empathetic lens, seeing them as human. He is so good at pulling nuances and human aspects of a character out so that they’re vulnerable and relatable.”
“From the initial conversations I had with Amy and Luca, it was very clear that we were all on the same page with our vision for the film — it should still be humorous and have a levity to it, even as it deals with life situations that are nuanced and characters who have pain inside of them,” adds Zendaya.
“I can’t imagine any other filmmaker making this movie,” says Oscar ® -nominated producer AMY PASCAL (Little Women, The Post, Spider-Man trilogy). “It’s about the complicated compromises people make, and the circuitous routes we take that are really the only way you can do things. It’s about wanting to be great. It’s about the friendship between two men, and how complicated that is as they both love a woman, and they both love each other.”
“It’s about three kids who spend a big chunk of their youth tangled together, and then as they become adults and try to find the people from their past, it gets messy. Because life is messy,” says Guadagnino. Says screenwriter JUSTIN KURITZKES, “There is not a filmmaker like Luca. He has such a distinctive visual style, but more exciting, he intrinsically understands what makes people tick.”
Watch the Trailer here:
Comments