Challengers

This is not The Notebook, this is co dependency with very strong sex appeal.

With no sex scenes, so if you are just tuning into Challengers to see everyone get down and dirty. Well they get down, but you see the clean version.

Game 🎾

Can a 'love story' be a love story if only one person is portrayed as being truly in love with the other? That is the question that was on my mind as I left my advanced screening of Challengers.

Firstly, we have Tashi, with Zendaya staring in her first leading role in a film.Tashi Duncan is indeed a force to be reckoned with. She is focused. She is determined. She is direct, maybe too much to a point where she can and will hurt someone's feelings.

Tashi is so determined to win that it mutes her emotions during important moments where a little sympathy may have led to a positive change of events.

That is specifically shown between a conversation with Art as they go back and forth about the 'What If's in relation to his future career if he were to lose the match. Then again it's displayed, almost in a chaotic way, as she's in her college dorm and speaking with Patrick before a her match. Tashi cares about winning, and that is it.

It does not matter if it was herself, Patrick, or Art. The love of her life is Tennis, even when her ability to play was cut short, not a man and it's what makes this film one within itself.

Zendaya's performance as Tashi is something that I have been waiting years for. Not only because I have followed Zendaya's career since I was a child but because there aren't many films where the leading lady isn't crying over a man that can't see her, or not worried about falling in love. She wants what SHE wants. She goes after it, she gets it, and when it gets taken away, Tashi does whatever she can to still hang on to it.

Set🎾

Moving on to Patrick, played by Josh O'Conner. The typical boy that one would see their first year college daughter speak about early on in the semester. Only for them to come home during Christmas break, heartbroken, depressed, and sunken-faced. Yes, Patrick is one of those men at first it seems. Throughout the film, he portrays his love for Tashi as more on the obsessive side which adds to his sexiness.

Josh, who has stated several times that he has nothing in common with Patrick at all, understood the assignment and gets an A+ from me. Patrick is either going to be looked at as a villain or viewers will be sympathetic with him. Especially since Tashi wasn't the only one who technically had something taken from her.

Then welcome Art portrayed by Mike Faist. A sweet, but deliberate, character who, with a few choice words, has just as much power over Patrick and Tashi as Tashi does with Patrick and Art before act two even starts. Mike was able to transform into Art in a way that can make viewers either understand where he's coming from, like Patrick, or a villain depending on where you place the blame - If you can place the blame on any of the three. It just depends on how you look at it.

Am I Team Tashi, Team Patrick, or Team Art? I'll keep that to myself until the end but I will say, pay very close attention to the score that is played while Tashi and Patrick speak to each other versus when Tashi speaks to Art.

Now don't get me wrong, I love some spice but I happen to prefer a little less chaotic relationship but that's just me.

Match🎾

The one complaint that I had about Challengers after my first viewing was how loud the score is during certain scenes. However when I sat with it for a day, it clicked. The volume of the score is just as important as the score itself. The score adds character to each of the relationships that Tashi has with both Art and Patrick.

The use of food throughout the movie, sort of in a flirty way by two of three parties of the love triangle, was a nice touch too.

Luca Guadagnino was able to shoot the movie as if the viewer was actually playing a game of tennis.

Yes ,the camera moves from each side of the court following the ball but there's more to it than that. The arguments are filmed as if you are playing tennis. There is actually a point in the third act where the watcher is viewing the film from the angle of the tennis ball itself! It's incredible!

TIEBREAK🎾

When it comes to teams? Honestly, I am Team Art.

I've had Patrick's all my life, so many Patricks, so believe me when I say this. When you find a handsome man, who understands you through and through, loves you despite your very clear flaws, and worships the ground you walk on. That is the kind of man you hang on to.

Men like that are unicorns. You can walk outside and find three different Patrick's in the same bar on a Friday night depending on your zip code. Especially in mine.

Regardless of what team you are on, or even if you like Tennis, Luca, Zendaya, Mike and Josh all serve and I cannot wait to watch Challengers again.