SOn the tennis court, the ball can take unpredictable trajectoriesescaping the player’s control. Like desirewhich follows the unpredictable reasons of the heart. In both areas, the playing field is hot and competitive. Themes at the heart of Challengersa film directed by Luca Guadagnino, starring Zendaya and Josh O’Connor, broadcast tonight on Rai 2 at 9.20pm.
Challengers on Rai 2 tonight 14 November: plot and cast of Luca Guadagnino’s film
Tashi, a former tennis prodigy, had to abandon his dreams of glory early due to a bad injury. Now she is the coach and wife of Art, a successful tennis player who has recently been in a declining phase. The opportunity to try to revive his career is a Challenger tournament in New York. Patrick also enters the competition: a never-blossomed player who was Art’s best friend in college and Tashi’s boyfriend, before she joined Art.
Going back and forth in time between 2019 and 2006, we discover the history of this triangle on and off the playing field. Tournament after tournament, match after match, the past and the present mix, old feelings resurface: everything is set for the final match/clash.
The review of the film with Zendaya and Josh O’Connor
In ChallengersGuadagnino transforms the tennis court into a 90s dance floor, thanks to the electrifying music of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that accompanies the matches, which immediately became a cult. The effect is to put the bodies of the players in constant tension who, despite the net that divides them, come together and then separate without interruption. The physical effort of the match allows impulses and instincts to emerge without mediation, which then overflow when the racket is put down. Ultimately, tennis is a relationship, a game of reception and response just like the one between the sexes.
Through small but significant details (the shared food, the hands warmed by the sun), the center of the story is above all the relationship between Patrick and Art, friends or perhaps something more. As young people or adults, their feelings remain confused and in the process of being defined, ready to go straight like a train and launch loudly, in tune with Call me by your name And Queer. To counterbalance the union between the two characters, a strong female figure silently guides them, while they believe they dominate her: Trisha anticipates Julia Roberts in After the Hunt.
Within such a varied filmography, among more personal titles (like the previous one Bones and All) and more mainstream (like this one Challengers), Guadagnino therefore continues a very coherent path.
Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Fais in “Challengers” (Warner)
The true story that inspired Challengers
Challengers is not a true story, but screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes admitted to being inspired, for the character of Zendaya, to Roger Federer’s coach/wife, Mirka Vavrinec: she had been a professional tennis player until an ankle injury forced her to retire in 2002, just two years after she met Federer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She became his manager and managed his life.
The cast of the film
After the success of the series Euphoria, Challengers it marked Zendaya’s first big-screen leading role. Led by a director who knows how to cast young stars, the ex-Disney Channel actress gives life, in the role of Trisha, to a mature and convincing performance, in a role very different from her previous ones. Next to her, in the role of Patrick, another rising star: Josh O’Connor, famous face thanks to the series The Crownand then to The chimera. We will find him again soon Knives Out 3 And The History of Sound. The last member of the trio of protagonists, Art, has the face of Mike Faist, seen in West Side Story by Steven Spielberg.