Challengers (2024) Spoiler Thread

[Eric Loves Rey]

Discuss

[AniNate]

Gotta give Luca credit for making a Cincinnati Applebee's parking lot romantic

[joselowe]

Loved the movie, the ending was good but I wish we could’ve gotten more clarity. I honestly still can’t tell if Art or Patrick won. Everyone seemed happy, does this mean they going to live as a thrupple? lol 

[Flopped]

I liked it. Solid 3.5/5. I didn't fully buy Zendaya as a mom in her 30s. I bought her more when she was playing a teen. 

[Morieris]

9 hours ago, Flopped said:

I liked it. Solid 3.5/5. I didn't fully buy Zendaya as a mom in her 30s. I bought her more when she was playing a teen. 

 

I didn't even buy her as a femme fatale in the trailers, you're telling me she's supposed to be in her 30s AND someone's mother on top of that?

 

Oh wow.

 

I'm more curious to see this to see if it would have worked just as well as "young people in a jealous triangle with the woman out bc of an injury".

 

[AniNate]

The movie takes place over 13 years, there's a lot of back and forth between the "teen triangle" years and the 20 something domestic life years with the passage of time being a dramatic device

[Morieris]

Ohhh okay that may work better for me.

[vale9001]

zendaya doesn't work not only because she doesn't have the psyque du role and looks younger, i mean people can look younger than their age even in real life,... her acting is very mid in general. She has 2-3 scene where she tries something new, for the rest the same two expressions with half closed eyes to look intense or a sulky face. 

 

 

Edited April 26 by vale9001

[joselowe]

4 hours ago, vale9001 said:

zendaya doesn't work not only because she doesn't have the psyque du role and looks younger, i mean people can look younger than their age even in real life,... her acting is very mid in general. She has 2-3 scene where she tries something new, for the rest the same two expressions with half closed eyes to look intense or a sulky face. 

 

 

Zendaya acting is mid?

 

 

just say you don’t like her. But to say a Shakespearean trained actress who is the only black woman to ever win best actress at the Primetime Emmy’s twice is a mid actress is a reach! 

[Krissykins]

The sauna. The techno. The body cam. The sweat. The wordless climax. The dialogue. The boys. 

 

5/5

[Grebacio]

On 4/25/2024 at 11:11 PM, joselowe said:

Loved the movie, the ending was good but I wish we could’ve gotten more clarity. I honestly still can’t tell if Art or Patrick won. Everyone seemed happy, does this mean they going to live as a thrupple? lol 

I really thought it was clear Art won, but my partner also said that the movie never shows who won

[LonePirate]

The score and the cinematography particularly during the tennis scenes were aces (no pun intended). I won't complain if Reznor and Ross win yet another Oscar as it will be tough for another score to enhance and drive the action in a movie as much as this score did. Also it would be nice to see something contemporary win for a change.

 

The performances were fine but nothing extraordinary. The dialogue was solid even if I found the backstory a bit preposterous. Hopefully enough people will see or enjoy the film as we need more of these mid-sized budget, non-sequel or IP films in the marketplace.

 

8.5/10 from me

[vale9001]

9 hours ago, joselowe said:

Zendaya acting is mid?

 

 

just say you don’t like her. But to say a Shakespearean trained actress who is the only black woman to ever win best actress at the Primetime Emmy’s twice is a mid actress is a reach! 

 

 

 

Girl mediocre actors have won oscars. Are you really talking about emmys? 

 

I'm not saying she's a terrible actress but she's not a good-great actress. It's like Emma Watson territory. Can work for several reasons in some roles but it's not this pure talent of acting like the actress for a reason are casted by scorsese, tarantino, gerwig, nolan, Lanthimos and they don't need to produce a movie to get a part. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27 by vale9001

[joselowe]

14 hours ago, Grebacio said:

I really thought it was clear Art won, but my partner also said that the movie never shows who won

Yeah my best friend told me art won too. I couldn’t tell because everyone looked happy as hell when he hugged Patrick and I wasn’t sure if art jumping over that far was a foul or not lol

[vale9001]

Art won, I don't think there is a doubt about that. The final is complicated, i need to rewatch the movie to (maybe 😅) understand it better. 

The meaning of the final should be everyone of them gets what he nedeed (their personal liberation) to move on with their life, so they both won whatever the tennis result was. 

 

my favourite sequence btw more than the final one is the one at the parking lot with all the wind. That's crazily good filmaking. 

[Joel M]

How do we know Art won? I didn't get that the game was actually finished when the credits rolled.

 

btw incredible movie. I don't think Luca as one of my faves but lowkey kinda loved most of his movies. Especially the tennis scenes looked incredible, usually sports in sports movies look super fake. 

Edited April 27 by Joel M

[filmlover]

Stylish and sensual in the way perhaps only a Luca Guadagnino movie could be, but I ultimately found this easier to admire than to fully embrace. After a while I started questioning whether I wanted any pairing in this love triangle to end up together due to none of them being particularly likable individuals (especially when Tashi often comes across as the manipulative and self-absorbed center of it all). They're not unsympathetic characters, but I just couldn't feel as if I wanted any of them to find any sort of domestic bliss with one another. I also don't think the narrative device of jumping around the 13 years of this relationship/rivalry ultimately served much of a purpose beyond a gimmick and that it would've been just as effective (if not more so) had it taken a more linear approach.

 

But at least it's never boring (aided immensely by another cracking score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that would fit in a night club), and it's very well-made with visual flair throughout, whether it's during sequences of a major windstorm or during the tennis matches (I howled at the extended POV shot from the tennis ball itself though).

 

Of course, it also helps that Luca recruited a solid cast to sell the audience on this love triangle, despite age/believability issues related to the flashbacks/forwards (in particular, the sight of 33-year-old Josh O'Connor as a teenage boy becomes especially laughable). Aside from that, O'Connor and Mike Faist give very good performances, but Zendaya is clearly a star who is proving capable of playing any kind of role, whether it's a superhero's love interest or a Lady Macbeth type, without breaking a sweat.

 

I also count myself among the group who dig the ambiguous nature of the conclusion. The final shot is the perfect frame to end the movie on.

 

B

[JustLurking]

On 4/27/2024 at 7:39 PM, vale9001 said:

Art won, I don't think there is a doubt about that. The final is complicated, i need to rewatch the movie to (maybe 😅) understand it better. 

The meaning of the final should be everyone of them gets what he nedeed (their personal liberation) to move on with their life, so they both won whatever the tennis result was. 

 

my favourite sequence btw more than the final one is the one at the parking lot with all the wind. That's crazily good filmaking. 

How can there be no doubt Art won when not only is he not shown to have won, but the ending of the film shows that the tiebreaker starts with a Patrick point (Art touched the net which means he lost that point period)?

 

The point of the ending is that it doesn't entirely matter whether Art beat Patrick because the point was to get Art into the competitive mindset where he would be able to make a move on the US Open, which they did. He very well could have beaten Patrick in that tiebreaker match, but by no means is there "no doubt about that".

 

Great film by the way. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Edited April 28 by JustLurking

[lorddemaxus]

On 4/25/2024 at 7:11 PM, joselowe said:

Loved the movie, the ending was good but I wish we could’ve gotten more clarity. I honestly still can’t tell if Art or Patrick won. Everyone seemed happy, does this mean they going to live as a thrupple? lol 

The point is it doesn't matter who won. They all were happy in that one moment

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

On 4/26/2024 at 9:14 AM, Morieris said:

 

I didn't even buy her as a femme fatale in the trailers, you're telling me she's supposed to be in her 30s AND someone's mother on top of that?

 

Oh wow.

 

I'm more curious to see this to see if it would have worked just as well as "young people in a jealous triangle with the woman out bc of an injury".

 

She plays a college age tennis star and then later someone in her early thirties with a child under the age of ten.