Re: Challengers reviews
Posted: Thu May 30, 2024 2:48 pm
There's definitely a much worse version of this movie -- one not made by such a gifted director, without talented actors, with more routine dialogue than the often imaginative/pungent exchanges that comprise this film. I'd have really disliked that film.
The thing is, I can't really love the film that exists, either -- despite its many admirable qualities -- because it's so easy to detect that less-interesting, formulaic version of the same story. Strip away the details (and the nuance they clearly add), and you have the blueprint of a routine studio romantic triangle -- minus the updated mores of 2024, it could have served as a Bette Davis vehicle 80 years ago.
The basic conflict is almost primitive: woman torn between two men, one offering stability/comfort, the other danger/eroticism -- the male version of the Madonna/whore dichotomy. There's A LOT more in the margins of Challengers -- the fact that the two guys knew one another prior to meeting the girl; that they've been both partners and competitors even aside from her; that she's partly working out her own life disappointments through interacting with them; that success/failure has been almost random for them, not lining up to any expected effort-reaps-rewards schedule. All of that stuff I found interesting, and it -- along with Guadagnino's fluid filming skills -- kept me engaged most of the way through. But, in the end, the thin quality of the overall plot nagged at me, and prevented me from enjoying this on any more than surface level.
Oh, and I pretty much hated the final tennis match. I retain a life-long aversion to watching characters' private dilemmas spill out into public scenes (an issue I also had with Baby Reindeer, to tip my hand on that), so the whole on-court tantrums thing had me rolling my eyes. I did like the final moment, but I'd been alienated from the film for a good 5 minutes by then, and it was too little too late.
As to the acting...I never understood the wild praise O'Connor got for The Crown, but I liked him more in La Chimera, and I think he comes off best, here, if only for having the wild-hair romantic persona that's always an audience-grabber (though he certainly doesn't stint on the negative aspects of the character). Faist is, like his character, honorable but not all that exciting. Zendaya mostly exists as "woman exotic enough you believe guys would spend a lifetime battling over her", and she fills that slot well enough...though I'm still not sold she's much of an actress.
I can see where critics who went into screenings -- during this traditionally dull part of the year -- found the film's virtues unexpected enough that they went a little overboard in selling it. But there's a critics' paradox afoot: we audiences then go to see it as something that's getting raves, and are proportionately disappointed that it doesn't live up to those raves. None of this is to say I disliked the film -- as I say, it's got a lot of admirable qualities. But it's also not the film I'd hoped I'd be seeing.
The thing is, I can't really love the film that exists, either -- despite its many admirable qualities -- because it's so easy to detect that less-interesting, formulaic version of the same story. Strip away the details (and the nuance they clearly add), and you have the blueprint of a routine studio romantic triangle -- minus the updated mores of 2024, it could have served as a Bette Davis vehicle 80 years ago.
The basic conflict is almost primitive: woman torn between two men, one offering stability/comfort, the other danger/eroticism -- the male version of the Madonna/whore dichotomy. There's A LOT more in the margins of Challengers -- the fact that the two guys knew one another prior to meeting the girl; that they've been both partners and competitors even aside from her; that she's partly working out her own life disappointments through interacting with them; that success/failure has been almost random for them, not lining up to any expected effort-reaps-rewards schedule. All of that stuff I found interesting, and it -- along with Guadagnino's fluid filming skills -- kept me engaged most of the way through. But, in the end, the thin quality of the overall plot nagged at me, and prevented me from enjoying this on any more than surface level.
Oh, and I pretty much hated the final tennis match. I retain a life-long aversion to watching characters' private dilemmas spill out into public scenes (an issue I also had with Baby Reindeer, to tip my hand on that), so the whole on-court tantrums thing had me rolling my eyes. I did like the final moment, but I'd been alienated from the film for a good 5 minutes by then, and it was too little too late.
As to the acting...I never understood the wild praise O'Connor got for The Crown, but I liked him more in La Chimera, and I think he comes off best, here, if only for having the wild-hair romantic persona that's always an audience-grabber (though he certainly doesn't stint on the negative aspects of the character). Faist is, like his character, honorable but not all that exciting. Zendaya mostly exists as "woman exotic enough you believe guys would spend a lifetime battling over her", and she fills that slot well enough...though I'm still not sold she's much of an actress.
I can see where critics who went into screenings -- during this traditionally dull part of the year -- found the film's virtues unexpected enough that they went a little overboard in selling it. But there's a critics' paradox afoot: we audiences then go to see it as something that's getting raves, and are proportionately disappointed that it doesn't live up to those raves. None of this is to say I disliked the film -- as I say, it's got a lot of admirable qualities. But it's also not the film I'd hoped I'd be seeing.