Challengers

"This was FUN! All departments absolutely crushed it: acting, editing, score, directing, wardrobe were so, so good. These characters felt very real, the tension in the second half was next level, and while it took me a minute to decide how I felt about the ending, I love the polarizing discourse."

"Highly anticipated and still exceeded expectations. Incredible casting, score, and cinematography. Maybe my favorite of the year so far! "

"Great acting just a little slow and the soundtrack was very odd as well as some of the angles of the shots. I don’t know how I felt about it, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. "

"Wow! In every technical aspect this movie is 10/10. However, I have mixed feelings on the themes explored and what I’m supposed to take away from all of it… I’ll be thinking about this film for a long time and I think a rewatch will help illuminate certain parts that left me scratching my head. Zendaya crushed it as expected!"

"I did not hate it but it was really kind of weird! The soundtrack really did not match the film at all and the angles were very strange also kind of slow "

"“Challengers” goes some messy, cutthroat places that portrays tennis and relationships as complicated and brimming over with dysfunction. Tashi, a former tennis star, is caught in the midst of a tense love triangle with two men, Patrick and Art, and is the epitome of unlikeable. She leads on, hurts, manipulates and is quite undeniably cruel. Everything about this movie, in that sense, is brutal and intense. Tashi doesn’t feel and is quite boldly callous as all she strives to do is win no matter who she hurts in the process. She bulldozes over feelings without a care in the world and drama seems to find and follow her no matter where she goes. Zendaya’s acting, as with everyone else’s, is impeccable. Especially in driving home the message that sports inevitably become tied to and centered around the idea of survival of the fittest and each man or woman for themselves. While this movie had sometimes strange musical interludes that didn’t match the mood and was a bit uneven in pacing, I really enjoyed how realistic it was in communicating that sports are grueling and sometimes take inhuman amounts of determination and strength. Perseverance is key because as soon as you set foot on the tennis court, it is all mental and a mind game, nothing left but you and the ball. Tashi for one definitely isn’t a stranger to mind games on and off the court as this movie’s strongest scenes find her being heartlessly calculating. Some of the most strong scenes are also often raw, chaotically filmed, and passionately involved. Get ready for the game and movie of a lifetime! "

"need y’all to understand how huge this movie was for me. i was a dear evan hansen stan, i have most of justin kuritzkes’ silly youtube videos memorized, and i grew up playing tennis. thank you luca guadagnino for this bisexually challenging, visual masterpiece. "

"A biblical level throuple😏"

"+/- This one is a mixed bag. On the one hand the filmmaking is top-notch, and though I didn't think Zendaya was the right choice for the role, she wasn't bad, just not who I would have liked to play the role. The other two leads played their roles particularly well. The directing, editing, and some of the game footage worked flawlessly to move the narrative forward in a way that was engaging. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross depicted the character's mental states. The choice of knowing when to use it and when not to use it was key in pulling us into the action. I also like the timeline leaps and how their messiness reminded me a little of a spider-web pattern rather than the conventional symmetrical and cyclical style we normally see in movies. Then I started to understand that the movie was one big practice in audience manipulation. As the movie progressed, my dislike for the characters grew and they started to feel less and less real. The conflict between the three main characters is more about deception, manipulation, and exploitation, and the games they play extend beyond the game of tennis, but when there are no winners, then the stakes are non-existent. This might work somewhat in a shorter movie, but when "the game" the characters play is nonsense, the leverage used to keep me in suspense comes across as wonderful filmmaking techniques being wasted, and as a consequence the movie just drags for the last twenty minutes or so. If you want to study quality filmmaking, the first two-thirds are well worth the watch. But the character motivations deflated my interest in the resolution of the story, and all the highly stylized (and effective) filmmaking in the beginning and middle started to work against it at the end when there was nothing left to care about. Tricky movie to review."

"So messy and I loved it! "