CHALLENGERS
Nobody’s making movies like Luca Guadagnino. His last three projects, “Call Me By Your Name” (2017), “Suspiria” (2018), and “Bones and All” (2022), showcase a perpetual explosion of bold storytelling that is distinct without becoming slavish to one particular style. Guadagnino paints with an emotional brush, snubbing his nose at convention and slathering his canvas with brash, exciting cinema that takes you places you didn’t know even existed.
His latest, “Challengers” (2024), is quite possibly the pinnacle of his achievements to date. Set within the sweat soaked world of the pro tennis circuit, where lithe athletes from erudite families are essentially raised from birth to excel at hitting a ball, Challengers focuses on the decades long relationship between a men’s pair coupling and a women’s singles phenom for whom each shares a unique, yet equally immolating, obsession. But don’t be fooled. This is no mere sports movie. Challengers is about tennis in the same way that “Bull Durham” (1988) is about baseball. Tennis is just tennis until it’s more.
Star and producer Zendaya (“Euphoria”, “Dune: Part 2”) leads the film with a staggering performance as a world-renowned tennis mogul who seems to have a forcefield around her at all times and is only turned on by true competitors. When Mike Faist (“West Side Story”) and Josh O’Connor (“Emma”, “The Crown”) coerce themselves into her orbit; she recognizes that these young men share an unrequited love for each other that they can only express through their mutual fascination with her. Chronicling the rise and fall of their careers and love affairs for, and with, each other, “Challengers” relishes in sex as competition while these athletes tease and prod and edge each other to the heights of Valhallic success or the depths of sordid self-destruction.
Featuring a propulsive techno score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the film rockets you along on a tantric collision course that leaves the audience stunned and satisfied in a way only fine cinema can achieve. From moment one, you know you aren’t just watching a tennis movie, but also something profound, titillating, and new.
Guadagnino just makes it look easy.
“Challengers” is playing at Prytania Theater Uptown ,Prytania Theatres At Canal Place, and The Broad Theater.
Alien – 45th Anniversary 4K Digital Restoration
“Alien” (1979), the genre-redefining masterpiece, is back in theaters for its forty-fifth anniversary with a new restoration befitting its titanic place in film history. Directed by Ridley Scott, this ‘haunted house in space’ movie was the perfect gateway horror film for a new generation of film fans, offering bloody thrills that shocked the world and the ascension of Sigourney Weaver as one of our finest movie stars. “Alien” is just as terrifying today as the day it premiered, enveloping audiences into the deepest darkest spit of space where no one can help you, no one can save you, and no one can hear you scream.
If you’ve never witnessed the glory of madman H.R. Giger‘s salacious celestial designs on the big screen or treated your kid to the majesty which is the “chest burster” scene for the first time, come grab some popcorn and enjoy.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Alien” is playing at Prytania Theatres At Canal Place.
