Challengers

a heart-pounding tennis drama that makes use of the sport's innate intensity and back-and-forth playing style to inform how this film is created. guadagnino and mukdeeprom's collaboration on this is by far, i think, their greatest. so sleek and stylish from simple cuts and pans to the more complicated shots like those from the tennis ball's pov. coupled with kuritzkes wonderful script that allows the actors to shine so so bright while also pummel them down into their most shameful yet. this film is something that you can't look away from at any point of time. the trio is insanely talented and despite this being zendaya's first leading role with a director like guadagnino, she steam-rolls with her presence and snark as tashi duncan. josh o'connor (my beloved) and his shit-eating grin, and his shit-eating smirk, and his shit-eating everything was a breath of fresh air from what i've seen him. he's able to pull off that cool and coy facade of not being overpowered by tashi but at the end of the day, tashi takes care of BOTH her white boys. mike faist plays an interesting mix of submission and manipulation with art. he's overpowered by both patrick and tashi but it makes you question if his inability to do anything by himself is more well-thought calculation rather than innate uselessness. his scene in the sauna, i feel, makes it more possible that it's the former. while tashi is obviously the star of the show and the object of both of the men's obsessions/desire/hatred, patrick and art are quite obviously in love with each other, maybe patrick more than art. it honestly feels like a tashi loves patrick, who loves art, who loves tashi situation and isn't that delicious? and you can't talk about challengers without talking about trent reznor and atticus ross's score. from hard synths that feels like everything is happening in twice the speed to soft piano pieces to enshrine those quieter intimate moments to the hard techno that pulsates beyond the screen into your body, the music in this film elevates the viewing experience a hundredfold. i just had to rock my chair back every time i hear the pace starts to quicken. nEED TO SEE THIS IN IMAX NEED TO SEE IT....