By this point, Luca Guadagnino being attached to a project is enough to have it skyrocket to the top of my Must Watch list. Since that first time seeing Call Me By Your Name on New Years Eve, I knew I had encountered a director who created special worlds. The release the following year of his polarising (but ultimately marvellous) Suspiria remake confirmed it and in 2022, Bones and All truly sealed the deal. Wherever Guadagnino went, I would follow (eventually follow, my unwatched copies of I Am Love and We Are Who We Are still look at me with very sad eyes.) The point I’m getting at is, whatever film Guadagnino made next I would watch, even if it was about something I don’t care about like, say, sports. Lo and behold, his next movie is about tennis. But, in a brave and Italian twist, Guadagnino asks us: what if tennis was sexy?

Challengers is the story of “what if tennis was sexy” but also unfurls into a great deal more. We follow a triptych through a 13 year period in which they fall in love, play tennis, fall out of love, stop playing tennis and eventually, find themselves playing tennis. I’m being glib but the impressive thing of the story isn’t necessarily the events of the story but the way they play out. From the opening five minutes, we get the basic idea of the plot. Two close friends fall in love with the same girl (who is forced out of playing tennis into coaching it by an injury), she ends up with one of them as he becomes a professional tennis player while the other fades into obscurity, but the two are reunited at a pivotal match for both their careers. Real simple set-up. But, the skill of the film is in its structure and how it bounces between its timelines like a ball in a tennis match (I am the first person to notice this, thank you for appreciating how smart I am.) While I was initially worried that it would get tiresome returning to the same tennis match and bouncing forwards and back from the past, what the structure actually does is layer meaning upon the initial premise. A simple tennis match becomes a fraught battle in which two former friends may be about to finally destroy each others lives, powered by lust, capitalism and pride. It’s a structure that I think will lend really well to multiple viewings but even on a first viewing, the constant build of narrative information creates a whirlwind of emotional meaning.

Obviously, that emotional connection with the narrative is only really possible because the characters that the narrative is built around are so strong, as individual units and as combinations. In fact, usually with these sorts of reviews I start by talking about the main character, an attribution that Challengers proudly rejects. These are three characters given equal weight and so I guess I’ll just run through the cast in the order they’re credited. Zendaya plays Tashi Donaldson, former tennis pro and current tennis manager/expert/wife. She is the catalyst for this passionate friendship implosion and gets two separate and magical introductions. In the modern day section of the film she’s a cold and steely figure who stands out as much in a crowded stand as she would if the crowd were disappeared, but then in the past she is a force of nature, bursting onto the court and into men’s hearts with a casual fury that bewitches. Having not seen Euphoria, I’m not that familiar with Zendaya as an actress, basically knowing her exclusively from sandy movies with large worms and spice lords. Clearly though, she has gotten good at picking the right directors to work with, because her star power and weapons grade “it girl” charisma are neatly fitted into the world of a rising tennis starlet who no one can look away from.

Speaking of our lookers, let me introduce you to Mike Faist as Art Donaldson. He caught my eye in West Side Story and was my favourite part of it, this tortured dream-boat of a boy who seemed destined for something magical. And now, here he is, making magic on screen yet again. Because we first meet Art as a professional tennis player, he has an easy power and swagger that you see with pro-sports people, but whenever we flash back, he’s still believable as a lanky loser with the possibility of doing something greater. He’s paired with Josh O’Connor as Patrick Zweig, also getting to play both against type and into fun. In real life and most of his other roles, O’Connor is a stone cold sweetie. He’s shy in interviews, talks about how much he loves Ratatouille and for all intents and purposes seems to have escaped from Pixar’s film. Here however, Patrick gets to be a real dog. There’s a grin O’Connor gives him that is a dirty, cocky, real arrogant kind of confidence that is also absolutely magnetic. Part of you wants to hate him, the rest of you is disappearing from your body in that long strand of drool hanging out your mouth. We really once again find ourselves up against the kinds of performances whose magnetism, charisma and sheer watchability are beyond analysis. Considering these are three actors I was familiar with before the film, I was astounded by how much they all disappeared into character.

If we’re talking about any of the technical elements of this film, we have to immediately talk about the musical score of Challengers, provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Reznor comes from the band Nine Inch Nails and Ross is a producer who has been rolled into the NiN fold, but the two have become most famous for their film composition. Their most beloved work by film nerds at large (including yours truly) was for The Social Network, for which the pair won an Oscar, though they certainly haven’t been slacking since then. Four more collaborations with David Fincher, one more with Guadagnino and working on my ultimate soft spot Empire of Light come to mind as highlights, all before we even mention their second Oscar win for Soul. The two have range and Challengers proves it again. They take us to Gone Girl by way of Troye Sivan, Charli XCX and Sufjan Stevens all before getting lost in the mosh pit of the gay club. In lieu of breathlessly explaining the film to my partner after sprinting home from the cinema, I just played her the first track on the soundtrack and she instantly knew what this movie is. What is especially impressive about that fact is that while the score tells you what movie you’re in, it also delicately wrong foots you emotionally. Music theory was never my strong suit so indulge me here, but these delicate piano notes that sound initially mournful ascend in ways you weren’t expecting, leading to this bizarre euphoria rising from the dust. Those tracks then pair up with a central motif which returns across the film, layering in noise and meaning like butter in a lovely flaky pastry. At this point, I wouldn’t be too shocked if it’s my album of the year, such bangers does it contain.

And that would all be enough. I promise, I would really be happy with a film if that was everything I got from it. But there’s so much more, which I promise I won’t linger on too long because I know brevity isn’t my speciality. The cinematography is beautiful, getting right up into the faces of characters in very sensual ways and then doing bonkers stuff. Challengers is one of those movies where every shot is the best possible way of visually telling the story and oh lord was I hooting and hollering. There is a POV shot near the end of the film which sounds like the kind of thing that should cause motion sickness, yet is actually a case of absolutely sick visual brilliance. These are weaved together with an editing that allows the pace to never let up. As I said earlier, the structure could threaten to slow the film but the way everything slots together in the final piece is magic. We slowly get to know everyone and as the film moves along, the pace keeps quickening. There’s a brief moment where we slow down for a stormer of a storm and then bam, a frenetic final act that will make you want to scream with joy. For a film that isn’t particularly short, I could have immediately gone into a second screening and left that too with as much energy as the first round.

You’re probably not shocked after all that to hear that I think Challengers is one of the best films of the year. With the way UK distribution works, we’ve had an excellent start to the year and with a potential drought of films coming up, this is the kind of heart pumping, chest bashing, serotonin overload of a film to keep us sustained. Try and catch it while it’s still in cinemas but otherwise, just pre-order that blu-ray now, you are gonna want to come back to this forever and savour an ace movie.