Challengers understands something most sports films don't: the sport has to feel like something. A physical, sensory fact.
Luca Guadagnino gets this right from the first serve. The camera work, art design and choreography add up to a film that genuinely feels like tennis. Twitchy. Intimate. Brutal in small increments.
Art's clean, controlled game and Patrick's chaotic, instinctive game tell you exactly who these men are before a word of dialogue confirms it. It inspired me as a designer more than it moved me as a viewer, and I mean that as a compliment.
Challengers is, underneath it all, a film about ambition. About what happens when you can't tell desire and competition apart. Tashi doesn't love Art or Patrick. She loves winning. Art and Patrick don't love Tashi. They love what she reflects back at them.
Stellar art direction with an absolute banger of a soundtrack.