So far, 2024 is the year of Zendaya. With Dune: Part Two taking over theaters to the tune of nearly $700 million worldwide, Challengers releasing to rave reviews on April 26 and the 27-year-old serving as a co-chair for this year’s Met Gala, the actress is thriving.
As the lead in Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s fabulous tennis drama, Zendaya has put forth her best performance to date. She plays Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy that turns to coaching after a career-ending injury. Zendaya is utterly wonderful. Her character is thrown into an emotional — and sometimes physical — relationship with best friends and tennis competitors, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor).
The love triangle is fueled by passion, mind games, competition and tennis as we journey over a 13-year span in their lives from playing the junior U.S. Open to the competitive tennis circuit.
O’Connor is mischievous and conniving as the rich kid trying to prove he can make his own way (while pretending he doesn’t have the world’s biggest safety net waiting to save him) as Zweig.
It’s a masterful performance from the The Crown actor, and you find yourself both drawn to him and hating him as quickly as one can volley a shot over the net. Faist’s insecurity and deference to Tashi is the ideal opponent for O’Connor, but his soft mannerisms belie a much more manipulative undercurrent.
Challengers is a tense, thrilling and hilarious journey, perfectly punctuated by an almost scene-stealing score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It’s hard to draw comparisons to anything else, because this movie feels unlike anything I’ve seen to date.
There’s a moment late — don’t worry, no spoilers — where you realize something monumental is going to happen. Guadagnino masterfully builds up the scene, and yet somehow manages to keep the payoff remarkably high despite the expectations washing over you mid-scene. The entire theater gasped or leaned forward in their seats or both. A 10-out-of-10 theater moment.
Challengers has consumed my thoughts since I walked out of the theater, and that’s the highest praise I can give. Go see it immediately.
Movie: Challengers
Release Date: April 26
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Stars: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
