Challengers (2024) Review

Challengers (2024) Review 

Yesterday I was able to see the new Zendaya drama, Challengers in theaters. This is a movie that’s been on my radar ever since I started seeing the trailers. The reviews for the film have been fantastic so it raised my excitement even more. Is the movie any good? Is it as good as the reviews make it out to be? Let’s get started!

The Good

The thing I think this movie is able to do so well is keep you engaged and invested from beginning to end. It’s this very interesting story about these two guys who are both awed with Zendaya, both of them want her. You see them as friends and the downfall of their friendship as the movie goes along. The movie does a fantastic job of keeping you engaged and on the edge of your seat from the first shot of the film to the last shot of the film. The movie is told out of order, it’s an example where the movie starts with the end. Then it goes back to the beginning and you wonder what the context of the first scene aka the final scene actually means. The movie plays that out, it builds intrigue as you’re fascinated by Zendaya’s character and you really aren’t sure what her goals and motivations in all of this is. I don’t wanna spoil too much about the film, but there are times where you think Zendaya is the villain of the movie. It’s the type of film where I think everybody could have a very different theory as to what’s really going on. And debate who is the villain of the movie. Part of that theorizing of the film is what makes you so engaged. Zendaya’s character isn’t written to be very likable and that’s why she’s a great character. There’s just all of these different layers to why it’s so engaging to watch. 

Along those same lines, the movie manages to throw a lot of curveballs (no open intended) at the audience. Where they establish this tone, this rivalry between our two male characters. When one of them has a conversation with Zendaya, you’re wondering how the next scene is going to play out. Sometimes it plays out the exact way you expect, sometimes it knows what the audience is thinking and what's going to happen and it does the opposite of that. It does a great job of setting the audience up for one thing and delivering something totally different. Since the movie is non-linear, it tells you information out of order and some of that helps the movie out. As you go throughout the film, you view scenes very differently. Throughout the movie it’s cutting back and forth between the past and the present. It’ll show you a scene in the present then it’ll show you a scene from the past and it changes your perspective on that. It’s so well done, it’s so well handled. This goes back to what I said earlier, but the movie engages the audience from beginning to end. 

From there, you have to talk about the three lead performances. All of them are fantastic and will most likely be some of the best performances of the year. The big one to talk about is Zendaya. I haven’t seen Europhia, so what I’m about to say could change if I ever do. I think this is Zendaya’s best performance yet. It’s a bit too early to tell what the award season is like. I hope she’s in the awards nominations discussions. She does a great job of playing this character that’s so unlikable. There’s also points in time where Zendaya brings some charm to the character, it’s quite a performance. Then you also have our two male characters played by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faust, both fantastic. Their characters have multiple layers to them so they needed to find actors that can portray all of these emotions. Especially since we see their characters over a long period of time and the dynamic between them changes so much, they nail all of the aspects and layers. 

After I saw the film, I was looking at different reactions of the film. One of the more polarizing aspects of the film has been the direction. The direction is very vibrant, it’s fully on display as you’re watching the film. For some people, it’s going to be too much and I can understand that. For me, I thought it worked really well and I kind of appreciated how stylized it was. It made the movie have a distinct style to it. The director, Luca Guadagnino, really goes for it. I haven’t seen any of his previous films, I don’t know what his direction is like in his other movies but for this movie I thought it worked and it fit the movie. I’ve said this in some of my other reviews, I appreciate it when movies have a distinct flavor to them. More and more movies in modern days have a sameness to them, they all feel the same with no distinct direction. This movie doesn’t have that, from beginning to end the movie has great direction that makes the scenes pop and stand out a bit more. Again, I can totally see why some people will have the direction as negative, it worked for me. 

Finally, the movie’s score is very cool. The composers are Trent Rasnor and Atticus Ross; they haven’t done a whole lot of movies. But the scores they have done are ones that stick with you. For example, they’ve worked on David Fincher’s last four movies with The Social Network, Gone Girl, Mank, and The Killer. All of them have scores that pop and stand out. This score is very vibrant and in your face. Again, I could see this being one of the aspects that turns people away. Between the direction and score they could see it as a movie with style over substance, that’s fair. That wasn’t my experience watching the film though. 

The Bad

The first thing that comes to mind is the movie is 2 hours and 11 minutes long and I don’t know if it needed to be that long. Especially in the last 15-20 minutes, it felt like they could have tightened it up a bit. The final 15-20 minutes is 100% focused on the final tennis match between our two male characters. The characters learn information and we see the character's reaction to it. Then the moment goes on for too long almost as if the directors didn’t trust the audience to figure out what the character realized. There’s moments like that, where it felt like they could have tightened it up a bit and made the movie closer to two hours long. 

Second thing with this movie, I could see a lot of people being very frustrated by the ending of the movie. The movie doesn’t answer all of the questions that it’s asking. There’s a lot that goes unresolved by the end. On the one hand, I appreciate that it has an ambiguous ending. It doesn’t feel the need to give all of the answers. I wouldn’t say this bothered me at all, once again I could see this being a weak point for some. 

Final Thoughts: I wasn’t over the moon excited for this movie, but it’s one that I was curious to check out. It's like a solid sports movie, but a very different type of sports movie. The movie gave me exactly what I wanted it to deliver. I was engaged and invested from beginning to end. I appreciate how it misdirects the audience with certain information and scenes. Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist gave three fantastic performances. All around, if you saw the trailers and thought it looked good you’ll really like this movie. I highly recommend watching this film, however…don’t watch it with your parents. 

The Score: 9.0/10 (A-)