Challengers review: Zendaya’s bright, sexy and witty tennis love triangle is a smash, writes BRIAN VINER

Challengers (15, 131 minutes)

Verdict: Game, set and love match

Judgement:

Italian director Luca Guadagnino certainly cannot be accused of making boring films. His last, 2022’s Bones And All, was about cannibalistic serial killers, one of them played by the heartthrob du jour, Timothée Chalamet.

Guadagnino’s latest, Challengers, is about a love triangle, one of the most hackneyed cinematic subjects, but let’s just say he gives it top spin by setting it in the cutthroat world of professional tennis and giving Dune’s hot foot Zendaya : Part two, her best and sexiest role yet at the top of the triangle.

The writer is Justin Kuritzkes, whose wife Celine Song earned a nomination for best original screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards for her charmer Past Lives. Kuritzkes deserves similar recognition for a slick, clever story that takes us back and forth in time through the stories of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her needy husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Art’s former best friend and doubles partner, the roguish Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is also Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.

Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her needy husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Art’s former best friend and doubles partner, the roguish Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is also Tashi’s ex-boyfriend

(L-R) Mike Faist, Zendaya and Josh O’Connor pose for a portrait to promote ‘Challengers’ on Friday, April 19, 2024

All three are promising young players, especially Tashi, until her ambitions are dashed by a knee injury. Instead, she turns to coaching, marries Art and guides him to no fewer than six Grand Slam titles.

Patrick has now dropped to 271st place in the world rankings. He’s broke and forced to sleep in his car on the eve of a low-ranking Challengers Tour event in New Rochelle, New York, unaware that the tournament features an exciting wild card entry, tennis’s poster boy Art, who is trying to pick up some easy wins on his name in preparation for the US Open.

Inevitably, the pair will meet in the New Rochelle finale, but by now they’ve become estranged and, needless to add, Tashi is the reason for that.

That’s pretty much the one-line summary of the film, so it takes a lot of acting and direction to elevate the film from what would otherwise be a lofty soap opera.

Overall, it gets them. The trio of leads is superb, Guadagnino uses such thumping music that the synthesizer is practically an extra character, and, crucially, the sporting action brims with authenticity as she physically engages us in our cinema seats by throwing balls practically into the viewer’s lens to shoot. the camera. If anything, I cringed.

Challengers isn’t a classic, and may not even be one of Guadagnino’s best three films, but it’s bright, sexy, witty and fun, and says enough about the demands of elite tennis and how it affects relationships to be considered a bona fide sports film. , even though – and this is a backhanded compliment – ​​it’s really just about a love match.

All three are promising young players, especially Tashi (pictured, played by Zendaya), until her ambitions are dashed by a knee injury

Mike Faist stars as Art and Zendaya as Tashi

Cast members Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor attend a premiere of the movie ‘Challengers’ in Los Angeles, California, on April 16, 2024

However, it’s not even the best film of the week from an Italian director. That honor goes to the Italian-language There’s Still Tomorrow (original title C’è Ancora Domani).

It’s the directorial debut of actress Paola Cortellesi, who co-wrote the screenplay and plays the female lead – and it’s great, in fact it was the biggest hit at the Italian box office last year, beating Oppenheimer and beating Barbie.

It is set in 1946 in Rome, a city still reeling from war and guarded by American military police.

Cortellesi plays Delia, a hard-working mother of three who is trapped in an abusive marriage to the brutal Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea), tyrannized by him and by the needs of everyone else in the household, including her bedridden father-in-law.

That may sound grim, but it is, even if a few rays of sunshine penetrate the gloom: the attention of an old lover, the kindness of an American lawmaker, the empathy of Delia’s friends, her daughter’s impending engagement.

But there is also something else going on, about which Cortellesi initially only tells us indirectly, and then draws a surprising conclusion that will really make you cheer.

It is an image of enormous, sometimes whimsical charm and no small amount of mischief, filmed in black and white in the style of great works of Italian neorealism, such as Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 masterpiece, Rome, Open City, for which it is a perfect would provide an example. accompanying piece. Honestly, it’s that good.

All films are now in cinemas.

Ordinary angels

Judgement:

Swank brings credibility to a “faith-based” heartwarmer.

In Ordinary Angels, Hilary Swank plays an alcoholic hairdresser from Kentucky who finds purpose in her miserable life by helping a widower (Alan Ritchson, best known as Jack Reacher in the Amazon Prime Video series) raise money to pay for a crucial to pay for an organ transplant. his young daughter.

It’s billed as a “faith-based” film, which usually means saccharine or maudlin, but Swank gives it a degree of credibility.

In Ordinary Angels, Hilary Swank (above) plays an alcoholic hairdresser from Kentucky who finds purpose in her miserable life by helping a widower (Alan Ritchson).