Challengers (15, 131 minutes)
Verdict: Game, set and love match.
Italian director Luca Guadagnino cannot be accused of making boring films. His latest, 2022’s Bones And All, was about cannibalistic serial killers, one of them played by the heartthrob of the day, Timothée Chalamet.
Guadagnino’s latest, Challengers, is about a love triangle, which is one of the most trite cinematic themes, but let’s just say he gives it a lift by placing it in the unforgiving world of professional tennis and giving Zendaya, Dune’s hot foot . : Second part, his best and sexiest role so far at the top of the triangle.
The writer is Justin Kuritzkes, whose wife Celine Song earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination at this year’s Academy Awards for her charming Past Lives. Kuritzkes deserves similar recognition for a deft and intelligent narrative, taking us back and forth in time in the stories of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her needy husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and former best friend and stunt partner of Art, the rogue. Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is also Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.
Guadagnino’s latest, Challengers, is about a love triangle, which is one of the most hackneyed cinematic themes, but let’s say he gives it a revolutionary effect by placing it in the unforgiving world of professional tennis.
Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her needy husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Art’s former best friend and stunt partner, the rogue Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is also Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.
(LR) Mike Faist, Zendaya and Josh O’Connor pose for a portrait to promote ‘Challengers’ on Friday, April 19, 2024
All three are enormously promising young players, especially Tashi, until their ambitions are ruined by a knee injury. Instead, he devotes himself to training, marries Art, and guides him to no less than six Grand Slam titles.
Meanwhile, Patrick has fallen to 271st in the world rankings. He is broke and has to sleep in his car on the eve of a low-ranked Challengers Tour event in New Rochelle, New York, unaware that the tournament has an exciting wild card, tennis poster boy Art, who is trying to get some easy wins under his belt in preparation for the US Open.
Inevitably, the pair meet in the finals in New Rochelle, but now they are estranged and, needless to add, Tashi is the reason.
That’s pretty much the one-line synopsis of the film, so it takes a lot of acting heft and directorial cleverness to elevate it from what would otherwise be a soap opera.
Generally, it catches them. The trio of protagonists is splendid, Guadagnino uses noisy music to such an extent that the synthesizer is practically an extra character and, most importantly, the sports action exudes authenticity while physically involving us in our cinema seats, practically shooting balls at the lens of the camera. I shuddered anyway.
Challengers is not a classic, and it may not even be one of Guadagnino’s top three films, but it is brilliant, sexy, witty and funny, and says enough about the demands of elite tennis and how it affects relationships to be considered a true sports movie. , although, and this is a double-edged compliment, it’s really just a love match.
All three are hugely promising young players, especially Tashi (pictured, played by Zendaya), until their ambitions are ruined by a knee injury.
Mike Faist plays Art and Zendaya plays Tashi
Cast members Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor attend the premiere of the film ‘Challengers’ in Los Angeles, California on April 16, 2024.
However, it is not even the best film of the week by an Italian director. That award goes to There’s Still Tomorrow in Italian (original title C’è Ancora Domani).
It is the directorial debut of actress Paola Cortellesi, who co-wrote the script and plays the female lead; and it is wonderful; in fact, it was the biggest hit at the Italian box office last year, surpassing Oppenheimer and surpassing Barbie.
It is set in 1946 Rome, a city still recovering from the war and patrolled by American military police.
Cortellesi plays Delia, a hard-working mother of three trapped in an abusive marriage to the brutal Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea), tyrannized by him and the needs of everyone else in the house, including her bedridden father-in-law.
If that sounds bleak, it is, though there are a few rays of sunshine penetrating the gloom: the attentions of a former lover, the kindness of an American congressman, the empathy of Delia’s friends, her daughter’s impending engagement.
But there’s also something else at play, which Cortellesi at first lets us in only tangentially, setting up a surprising conclusion that will truly make you want to rejoice.
It is a film of tremendous charm, at times whimsical and not a little mischievous, filmed in black and white in the style of great works of Italian neorealism such as Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 masterpiece, Rome, Open City, to which it would be a perfect complement . complementary piece. Honestly, it’s that good.
All the movies are now in theaters.
ordinary angels
Swank brings credibility to a moving “faith-based.”
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 on the Amazon Prime Video series) raise funds to pay for an organ transplant. vital for his little daughter.
It’s billed as a “faith-based” film, which usually means saccharine or maudlin, but Swank gives it some 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).