The Starlight Journal

Let’s take a minute to talk about Zendaya and the evolution of her career. As a child of the late 90s and 2000s, I watched many young stars blossom through roles on the Disney Channel, some went on to break through the “Disney bubble” and become massive stars, some never really left it, or simply fizzled out of the spotlight. While I was still watching the channel regularly when it premiered, Shake It Up was definitely a show that had its heyday while I was beginning to age out of these shows, and for a while I thought Bella Thorne was going to be the big star of the two, but it’s safe to say I was wrong. After over half a decade now of post-Disney Channel roles, I feel ready to say that, as an actress, Zendaya may be the best to ever come from the Disney system. She may not be a star on the level of say Selena Gomez or Miley Cyrus, but every single time she appears in anything, she makes it better from her presence alone. Another thing I feel confident in saying at this point: my favorite movie of 2024 most likely will be a film starring Zendaya. Because, wow was this movie just flat-out excellent.

I was able to see Luca Guadagnino’s newest film Challengers a few days early, as my theater had an early screening of the film ahead of its wide release this coming weekend. Already known recently for films like Call Me By Your Name and Bones and All, Guadagnino has put himself on the map as a maker of captivating, sexy films you simply can’t take your eyes off of. With Challengers, we get a steamy, thrilling romantic sports film focusing on how the game of tennis has shaped relationships between our three leads. Former tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) now coaches her husband, U.S. Open winner Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) as they look to redeem Art’s career after a lengthy slump, which leads to a challenger match against Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) – the former best friend of Art, and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend. As the match heats up, we turn back the clock to how these relationships have been shaped through the sport, with plenty of romance, fiery competitiveness, and closer looks into their psyche’s along the way.

What is so unique about Challengers is that the storytelling is framed through the tournament match between Art and Patrick, as Tashi watches on in the stands. Certain moments in the match lead to extended flashback sequences depicting the trios’ past, including the two friends meeting the young enigmatic prodigy, their several romantic escapades, how their competitive spirits shaped their relationships, characters falling in and out of love – and how tennis is used as a lens and crux for all of these. In these flashbacks, we not only grow to get more invested in the matchup as more unravels about the lives of our three leads, which leads to a tremendous climax, but also see just how much tennis, and the desire to be the best, has warped them. I connected with Tashi, Art, and Patrick as I learned more and more of their story, and as a result grew super invested in the result of their match, but the more you learn, the more we peel back the curtain on the kinds of people they really are. You root for them, but they’re not really good people. Patrick is slimy, sleazy, and is still stuck in the mindset of his teenage years, but you can’t help but feel charmed by O’Connor’s performance. Art deals with chronic jealousy, and doesn’t have the spirit in him anymore he did in his youth, but you feel for him as you learn more about the state of his relationship. Tashi right off the bat glues your eyes to the screen, portraying the game of tennis in a fiery spirit I personally was not used to seeing, yet her competitiveness and need to live through a champion as her playing career ended early starts to paint her in an uglier way.

It’s with this that Luca and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom work magic with the camera as the tennis match-ups tell our stories. From stunning POV shots, to first-person shots during the game that actually work (I really have never been a fan of this gimmick when done for an extended time in movies), to nonstop back-and-forth shots as our athletes trade shots, to little things that grow to mean more as the movie progresses like focusing on the certain tics of our players, it is truly a masterful work of visual storytelling. When I began to catch on that the entire movie would be told with this singular tourney match as our storytelling device, I was weary on how we would develop our characters with little-to-no real-time dialogue scenes, but oh boy does Luca make it work. I am a relative novice to his work, but I want to watch everything he makes from this point forward. He made tennis the most captivating, thrilling, and nail-biting competition on the planet, and this is coming from someone who has always struggled to get invested in the game as a sports fan. It’s magnificent stuff.

The performances of our three leads are all outstanding in their own right. They all work off each other perfectly. Zendaya jokingly referred to the film as Codependency: The Movie in a Vanity Fair interview, and she’s kind of spot-on. The trio are all co-dependent on each other throughout, needing each other as a rival, a lover, a vessel for their own success, a way to get their careers off-life support. Many conversations and arguments are had over their inability to not talk about life through the lens of tennis, but for our trio, they simply can’t. Trapped in their own minds and clouded by their own impossible visions of success, of love, of being the best. As they unravel, you realize more and more that these rosy-cheeked, lovestruck teens we first got to know are far from the best people, both towards each other and in general. But this is what makes Challengers so captivating as a viewer. We get to see the lengths they go to get the results they aim for. We see just how, as Zendaya stated, codependent they all are towards each other to their detriment. Yet through this, it just makes the tension we feel as viewers ramp up more and more as we continue on with the tennis bout in the present day.

This is Zendaya’s movie though. The Academy should just do us a favor right now in give her the Oscar right now, because it’s only April, yet it’s over for the rest of the contenders. This is her year. From Euphoria, to Dune, to Spider-Man, she’s continuously proven that there’s not much she cannot do as an actress, but almost from minute one I could tell she was on a whole other level in this film. A career-best performance that had me thinking during it, “man she’s had hit after hit and she’s not even thirty yet. We could be seeing performances like this for decades”. This is truly the Zendaya era, and we’re just getting started. As I mentioned prior, the character of Tashi Duncan is defined by the fierceness of her competitive spirit, and how it consumes her. She is never truly able to form a healthy, fulfilling relationship because nothing fits the perfectionist image of what she feels she is capable of. Everything needs to be critiqued, all through the lens of “improving their game”. When her playing days end, we see this consume her by having to live through someone, she needs the success, yet she needs to be the one controlling the narrative. From the fiery nature of her on the court, to seemingly simple moments like her intensely watching the tennis games, Zendaya is in total control throughout the movie’s runtime. I was already putting her on my early Best Actress ballot for Dune: Part Two, but she is for sure on there now for Challengers. If we’re four months into the year, and I’m already nominating her twice for Best Actress, I have a good feeling we’ll be saying “Academy Award Winning Actress Zendaya” sooner rather than later.

“I’ve been asked a lot about sex scenes from people who have seen the movie, and I’m like, ‘What sex scenes?’”-Zendaya, IndieWire

*breathes* Okay, let’s rip the band-aid off now. What drew the attention of many in the trailers and marketing for this film were the spicier, steamier moments presented in the trailer between Zendaya and her two male leads. I am here to report, with full transparency, that holy hell does this movie deliver in the sexiness department. This movie, to put it bluntly, is hot as all hell. I am ashamed to admit that I have still not seen Call Me By Your Name, but since that film’s release, I have heard nonstop praise towards Luca’s knack for portraying lust on-screen through his characters and his storytelling, and oh my goodness does it work here. Zendaya shocked many when she revealed in an interview that, despite the assumption that there would be some in the film due to the steamy nature of the trailers, there were no sex scenes in the film itself. Here’s the thing. The film is so sexy, that it doesn’t even need it. It is so effortlessly hot that Luca and our trio just hook you in and can’t get you to look away. There’s a scene between the three of them that’s been highlighted plenty in the trailers, but I wasn’t prepared for just how hot it was in the final product. I had to take a second after and figure out to myself if I had just seen the hottest scene ever put to film. It’s not just sex-appeal for the sake of sex-appeal though. These moments have a place in the story. They show the need both Art and Patrick both develop for Tashi, they plant the seeds for how the three become attached to each other, for how sex is used as a tool, a play for power, a representation for the desire for victory. This is what separates Challengers from your run-of-the-mill romantic thriller or borderline softcore porn, I don’t think large portions of this movie work without these intimate, steamy moments. The lust of these characters are rooted in what makes them tick, what drives them in their arcs, and again, without them, I don’t think the ending of this film delivers as much as it does.

Challengers is a triumph. It’s a triumph in visual storytelling, in crafting a romantic story through sports, a triumph in acting and directing excellence. Each moment and story beat has its purpose, without certain scenes, certain flashbacks, little bits of dialogue or character moments, the payoffs that are presented in the tennis matchup that drives the story do not pack the punch they do. This was one of those movies that I just never wanted it to end. The tennis bout could’ve conceivably gone on for another hour and I still would’ve been as captivated and had my heart pumping as I sit on the edge of my seat to see how it plays out. It is worth seeing for Zendaya’s performance alone, but if you liked any of Luca Guadagnino’s prior films, or were simply captivated by the trailer, do yourself a favor and see this movie as soon as you can. Without question one of my favorite movies of the year that I will have on my mind for months to come.

The Starlight Film Journal is a passion project of mine focusing on my one true love – talking about movies. Apologies for the lateness of this Journal, and the lack of articles lately. I hope to finish what I have been working on very soon for you all. Look forward to my (super-belated) Best of 2023 articles coming soon, future film reviews, and my monthly Film Journal articles! If you are interested in more of my thoughts on movies, I journal every film I watch on my Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd and would love it if you joined the fun!