Film Review: Challengers' tennis drama is a love triangle at match point

Mike Faist as Art, Zendaya as Tashi and Josh O'Connor as Patrick in Challengers

• Challengers
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

Challengers (15A) stars Zendaya as tennis prodigy Tashi, who encounters best friends and tennis rivals Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) as all three hurtle through the amateur ranks towards the professional circuit’s bright lights. 

When a tragic accident cuts Tashi’s career short, she has some big decisions to make in the personal and professional spheres, which means bad news for Art and Patrick’s friendship…

Written by Justin Kuritzkes and directed by Luca Guadagnino, Challengers is an offbeat romantic drama that twists many of the usual genre conventions into knots. 

The story is truly a three-cornered affair, with Tashi in thrall to different aspects of the boys’ personalities, even if there is never any doubt that Tashi is the one calling the shots (literally, in Art’s case, when she becomes his tennis coach).

Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor are terrific as the brash and ambitious teenagers, although they’re not quite as persuasive as older, cynical professionals as the story flashes back and forth between then and now.

Meanwhile, Zendaya, who also produces, plays them both off the court with a scintillating performance of icy cool.