Demanding the performance of a lifetime from its players, sport is performative in nature and theatrical at its very essence. From the Euros in Germany to the Paris Olympic Games, summer 2024 saw sports content flood screens across the globe. Testifying to the tremendous appetite for athletics, audiences couldn’t get enough; the cinematic spectacle of competition was just too enthralling. Film has always taken advantage of the theatricality of sports performances, with sports films such as Rocky (Avildsen, 1976) boasting highly emotive and melodramatic storylines often to widespread acclaim.
In recent times, as the sports film enjoys its so-called “renaissance” on the big screen, a growing number of them have emerged with a shift in focus. Films like 2010’s Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010), 2018’s I, Tonya (Gillespie, 2018) and last year’s Iron Claw (Durkin, 2023) have committed their narratives to exploring the social dynamics between athletes in an attempt to dive into their inner psyche. With an elevated emphasis on character, many modern sports films owe their success to their earnest, and, at times, brutal portrayal of the individuals who serve as compelling subjects. One such film was this summer’s hit Challengers (Guadagnino, 2024), which spoiled the viewer with its thorough analysis of a trio of such contenders.
Challengers follows a trio of tennis players, Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), as they navigate the contention generated by their mutual desire for each other. A constant, yet natural, transition between timelines demands the actors play both teenagers and adults in what serves as a showcase for their range as performers, who can convincingly portray either, as they assume an almost giddy energy in flashbacks, and a rather somber and defeatist tone in the present.
Paramount to Challengers’ success was its creation of three authentic personalities capable of capturing and maintaining the audience’s intrigue. Sports dramas have consistently produced strong and compelling lead characters, with Will Smith winning a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the Williams sisters’ father in King Richard (Green, 2021) as recently as two years ago. With an endless number of Olympians going viral this summer for the so-called “main character energy” they exuded, from an unconventional breakdancer to a bespectacled gymnast, the ease at which they assumed the titular role in a narrative so monumental showcased the natural potential of the athlete-type character to captivate.
From their promising beginnings at an amateur tennis tournament to their not-so-elegant, but nonetheless exhilarating, ending participating at a low-level ‘Challenger’ event, the film captures both the glamour and grit of competitive sport. Dejected moments in which we observe Tashi being pushed out of the court, Patrick’s income as a tennis player being incapable of maintaining a roof over his head, and Art falling out of love with a sport which has consumed his marriage, offer a raw glimpse into the reality and struggles of a real-life athlete outside of the arena.
Above anything else, Challengers sets out to explore the dynamics between these individuals in its construction of three athletes distinctly dissimilar in terms of skill and mindset, yet all unquestionably interconnected through their collective disposition to compete. Tashi represents the driven, single-minded and composed athlete, one who dominates over her fellow competitors with ease and is committed to a plan which will ensure her the highest level of success in the long-term. Patrick, who possesses an evident talent but neglects investing in its development, instead seeks a constant flow of small-scale successes to feed his own, far more impatient and shortsighted, hunger for glory. Art, on the other hand, while lacking passion and the flair his peers enjoy for the sport, is capable of dissociating from the all-consuming world of competitive sport and far more concerned with finding the same meaning and value off the court in his personal life.
In charting the journeys of three very different athletes, Challengers effectively exhibits the different types of people sport, and more importantly, competition molds, providing us with a trio of multifaceted opposites varyingly consumed by their commitment to the game. The use of a love triangle is a fitting and, also, entertaining means through which their dual identities, as both individuals and competitors, can confront each other. The fundamental question the film poses is whether these opposing facets of one’s nature can ever be separated, and through its explosive conclusion, it resolves to provide a conclusive answer.
After a summer where the theatrics of sport and its array of personalities conquered the screen, it is rather fitting that one of its greatest box office triumphs was a film exploring just that. If this summer of sport on-screen managed to prove anything, it was not only the astounding capabilities of the athletes but the equally momentous potential of their cinematic caricatures.
