Challengers Blu-ray Review | Zendaya Drama Film | Luca Guadagnino Direction

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Challengers is the latest from director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name). It stars Zendaya (TV’s Euphoria) as Tashi, a former tennis prodigy who was severely injured during her college career at Stanford. Years later, Tashi is coaching her husband, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), who has been winning on the pro tour and is now trying for a career Grand Slam (winning all of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments). But since an injury, he has been lacking confidence and losing to opponents he should be easily defeating. Tashi decides to pull Art off the tour and put him in a Challenger tournament, the lowest level of the pro tour, ranked right above the college level. At a challenger event in New Rochelle, NY, the tennis power couple run into an old friend turned rival, Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor).

Patrick and Art were once best of friends and doubles partners on the Juniors tour, winning the U.S. Open Juniors title together, but when they both began to compete for the affection of Tashi, it began to ruin their friendship. She became “a homewrecker” in her own words.

Guadagnino does not tell the story of the three characters and this complicated love triangle in real time, instead we begin with Art and Patrick battling at the tournament in New Rochelle, and he offers us looks at how everything unfolds through flashbacks, sometimes he goes back thirteen-years, sometimes three-weeks, sometimes just a few hours. It becomes obvious that there is more than just a rivalry between two friends over a woman at play here, but there is some sexual tension between Art and Patrick, and also Tashi manipulating both of them to her own advantage, as she says at one point, “I’m taking such good care of my little white boys.”

The film, has hard as it tries to be daring, important, and shocking, pulls too many punches on its sexuality, outside of a few shots of male nudity in a locker room, the sex scenes are quite tame, there is no deep intellectual examination of anyone’s motives, and, the ending is rather strange. The protagonists are also very unlikable people. They are all doing things to undermine, manipulate, and hurt each other. Were it not for Zendaya doing a bang up job with this material and once again showing her range as an actress, this film would collapse under its light weight.

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The Video

Challengers was shot on various cameras on 35mm Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 in Super 35 3-perf format and some segments shot in 4K. It utilizes a 4K digital intermediate and is transferred in a 1.85:1 AVC 1080p encodement on Blu-ray. There is a nice, organic layer of grain throughout this transfer and no noise or macroblocking. The colors in the bright, tennis match sequences come across naturally, like a day out at the courts, and then there are the moodier, shadowy inside scenes in the hotel rooms with vermillion lighting and so on that also look good and have good detail.

The Audio

Challengers gets a Dolby Atmos audio mix that is very straightforward. There is not much movement in this mix. The electronica score from Trent Reznor    and

Atticus Ross that pulsates in and out of certain scenes to punctuate certain pivotal scenes gets a good amount of ambience and some height awareness. The height channels and surrounds also carry a bit of atmospherics and ambience during the tennis sequences, but the mix remains mostly stagnant, even if it is clear and has good dynamics. The score also carries a good bit of low end, but when the score does not pulse in, there is not much to speak about in the subwoofers.

The Supplements

There are no extras for this release beyond the digital code that redeems only on Fandango at Home, no Movies Anywhere code with this release.

The Final Assessment

This film showcases Zendaya’s acting chops but as a drama pulls too many punches to be as dangerous, thought provoking, or taboo that it seems to want to be. It pushes no boundaries that the Gen Z crowd it is aimed at has not already grown numb to, hell, it pushed no boundaries that any generation from Gen X on down has grown beyond. The music from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is a standout alongside the inventive editing and the standout acting from Zendaya. The Blu-ray is a solidly transferred disc with good audio and visuals.

Challengers is out on Blu-ray + Digital July 9, 2024 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Purchase Challengers Blu-ray + Digital on Amazon.com

• Rating Certificate: R (for language throughout, some sexual content and graphic nudity)
• Studios & Distributors: Frenesy Film Company | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Pascal Pictures | Why Are You Acting Productions | Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
• Director: Luca Guadagnino
• Written By: Justin Kuritzkes
• Street Date: 9 July 2024
• Run Time: 131 Mins.
• Video Format: AVC 1080p
• Primary Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible)
• Secondary Audio: English Descriptive Audio (US) | English Descriptive Audio (UK) | French (Québecois) DD 5.1 | French DD 5.1 | Italian DD 5.1 | Spanish (Castilian) DD 5.1 | Spanish (Latino) DD 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH | French | Italian SDH | Spanish (Castilian) | Dutch | Spanish (Latino)