Challengers 2024
I knew nothing about this movie, but I had a free open ticket and this movie gets pretty good reviews, so off I went. I don't want to give away the ending, but one reason this movie is so disappointing is that it has an ambiguous ending. Critics love that, but audiences generally don’t, which is why there is a disparity between the critical ratings and the fairly mediocre Cinemascore from audience surveys of only a B+. I don't enjoy going to a movie and then have to make up my own ending. However I also may have missed some things. I feel like an ambiguous ending is a director's conceit, as is the overly loud soundtrack, everything being told in flashback, and the shaky cam (taken to a new level as if the camera is attached to a tennis player or even the ball). This is a director who wants to star in his own movie, when really his job is to tell a story and he keeps getting in the way. I will say that this is not a sports movie even though it is about tennis players and requires at least a little knowledge of how tennis scores work. Instead it is mostly about a love triangle over a period of years with Zendaya as the object of two lifelong friends’ (with ample homoeroticism) affections. Even that has an unnecessarily ambiguous ending. I think in the end you are still wondering what is motivating these characters, which maybe is the point, but also shows how the movie doesn't have one. Otherwise the performances are good by Zendaya, Michael Faist, and Josh O'Connor and the movie is mostly entertaining as it goes. Walking out of the theater I felt like it was okay, but not entirely sure what to think. As I thought more about it, I liked it less and less, revising this score from a B- in my first draft, down to a C+, and finally a C.
Written: 29 Apr 2024