Movie Review Challengers

Challengers (2024) 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino 

Written by Justin Kuritzkes 

Starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor 

Release Date April 26th, 2024

Published April 26th, 2024 

Sexuality is non-binary. Full stop. Sexuality is a spectrum on which we all exist. The notion of straight or gay as a binary dynamic of sexuality is outdated to the point of being silly. That's not to say that people's desires, what turns them on, can't be just one thing that happens to adhere to the notion of straight or gay, it's merely an acknowledgment that sexuality for anyone can be a fluid concept depending on circumstance. This opening paragraph is triggering a lot of straight men, I can feel the discomfort as they click away in anger. 

Challengers is a rare film that explores the idea of sexuality as a spectrum. The three protagonists of Challengers, two men and a woman, have a brief, exploratory experience that gets at the heart of how circumstantial sexual preference can be. The film also reframes what sex can be in an orgasmic final showdown that reveals these three characters true desires in a fast paced, eye-catching, and breathtaking final few minutes. Director Luca Guadagnino appears to be making the case that anything can be sex its if the circumstances align. 

Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy caught up in a love triangle with a pair of fellow prodigies. Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) have been friends since their early teen years spent at a tennis academy. Both are gifted players in very different ways. Art is methodical and well practiced, Patrick gets by on brut strength and determination, along with an unusual serve. The two young men compliment each other and when each falls for Tashi, it becomes not unlike a tennis match filled with strategic points and breaks. 

But Tashi is no mere ball at play among these two players. She's their coach, teaching them both the game. Literally, she becomes Art's Coach as his career advances while Patrick seeks her as a Coach later in his career. The film shifts through time effortlessly layering in the story to build toward that remarkable final act tennis match where Art and Patrick are playing the game of their lives with Tashi acting as mastermind and the prize for the winner while losing herself in the excitement of tennis. 

For Tashi, life is tennis. Her relationship with Patrick falls apart when he refuses to talk about tennis while the two are becoming intimate. Her relationship and eventual marriage to Art is tethered in part to his success on the tennis court and she's not afraid to tell him that if he can't maintain his high standard of play, she will lose interest and leave him. This constant pressure from Tashi has made Art one of the most successful players in tennis, a grand slam winner, and a favorite for the upcoming U.S Open. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review La Chimera

La Chimera (2023) 

Directed by Alice Rohrwacher 

Written by Alice Rohrwacher 

Starring Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato 

Release Date December 6th, 2023 

Published December 15th, 2023 

The great catch up continues with a film that made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival back in May of this year. La Chimera tells the story of an English Archaeologist who falls in with a group of grave robbers in a small Italian village. As we join the story, the archaeologist is fresh out of jail after having been arrested for robbing a grave and selling the stolen treasure. Arthur, the archaeologist, played by Josh O'Connor, wants to leave the life of a grave robber behind but finds himself drawn back into this criminal world out a lack of being able to do anything else. 

Arthur is disgraced, an ex-pat, the only people he knows are the grave robbers who recruited and befriended him years ago. Without them, his only tether to the world is the loving mother of his late, missing, ex-girlfriend Beniamina. Is Beniamina dead? Has she just wandered off on her own, as her mother hopes and believes, the movie will answer this question eventually. Meanwhile, as Arthur tries to find a way to avoid going back to jail, he finds himself drawn to Italia (Carole Duarte), a student of Beniamina's mother who also acts as a servant to the elderly woman and her gaggle of unforgiving daughters. 

Italia is carrying a secret. While staying in this decaying mansion as student and servant, she's also hiding her two children in one of the many, many rooms in this ancient home. She has a baby and a pre-teen and seems to pick up strays as the movie goes along. Arthur, being a bit of a stray himself, might have a place to land with Italia if he can give up his grave robbing. Arthur seems to want to quit but he's also drawn to the remarkable and incredible works of art that are buried with those who died in the Ancient Italian Etruscan era. Even while he was imprisoned, Arthur dreamed about the items he'd pulled out of the ground and kept for himself, his last connections to his time as a legitimate archaeologist. 

That Arthur returns to the life of a grave robber out of a sense of inertia. He desires change but his grief and his disconnection from the world as he hoped to have it, leads him to the path of least resistance, a life that welcomes him, favors him, a rare place in the world where he is respected. Arthur has a strange talent. He can locate a grave filled with treasure using dowsing. Dowsing is a mostly debunked form of locating things underground. For the purpose of the movie, whether Arthur is a bit of a con man or if he genuinely has a magical talent, he using a stick to point to a place in the ground where treasure is located. It just also happens to a place where death is located. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media