Challengers (2024)
Challengers
”Tashi pushes her husband, Art, into a Challenger event to break his losing streak against his former best friend.”
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Why watch this film?
Challengers may be the most mature film from filmmaker Luca Guadagnino - the one considered the most American of Italian filmmakers. Despite having good films in his record, such as Call Me by Your Name and A Bigger Splash, Challengers is the one that brings certainty that Guadagnino is an auteur director, who masters the language and knows how to play with the audience's emotions. All of this, here, from a tennis match involving two former colleagues (Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist) who face off on the court, but leave behind stories from the past (told through well-inserted flashbacks) and in the relationship with the wife of one of them (Zendaya). In the end, Guadagnino, with style and good casting direction, shows that a tennis match is also about relationships - and that, ultimately, everything in the world is about sex.
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Plot summary
Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Grand Slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a “Challenger” event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.
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From the same director
Call Me By Your Name
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