Tag: Challengers

Tennis star Ben Shelton had a silly excuse to dislike the Challengers movie but liked its popularity

The young tennis star didn’t understand the plot of the Zendaya tennis movie.

As one of the top young American tennis players in the world, it was fascinating to hear what Ben Shelton thought of Challengers (2024).

The 21-year-old tennis star, who currently holds the No. 13 men’s singles ranking, was asked to share his opinion on the popular sports film starring Zendaya that was released earlier this year.

Shelton told Interview Magazine that although he had seen the movie, he “wasn’t the biggest fan” of it. He admitted that while they did a “great job” with the tennis sequences, the plot didn’t really work for him.

Warning: Some potential spoilers for this movie are mentioned.

According to Shelton, it looked realistic when the ball was moving.

But he said that he struggled to “understand” the plot of the film. For example, was Zendaya’s character actually in a love triangle with the two guys?

Meanwhile, he also had some trouble with the ending. Without giving away too many spoilers, Shelton struggled with who won the final match between the two male leads. He wondered why they embraced instead of depicting an actual winner.

Despite these complaints, though, he was still happy that “a lot of people liked it” likely because it gave increased attention to his sport.

Shelton is currently competing in the US Open in New York City.

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Challengers cements Zendaya with leading lady status

The tennis drama exceeded expectations in every way.

So far, 2024 is the year of Zendaya. With Dune: Part Two taking over theaters to the tune of nearly $700 million worldwide, Challengers releasing to rave reviews on April 26 and the 27-year-old serving as a co-chair for this year’s Met Gala, the actress is thriving.

As the lead in Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s fabulous tennis drama, Zendaya has put forth her best performance to date. She plays Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy that turns to coaching after a career-ending injury. Zendaya is utterly wonderful. Her character is thrown into an emotional — and sometimes physical — relationship with best friends and tennis competitors, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor).

The love triangle is fueled by passion, mind games, competition and tennis as we journey over a 13-year span in their lives from playing the junior U.S. Open to the competitive tennis circuit.

O’Connor is mischievous and conniving as the rich kid trying to prove he can make his own way (while pretending he doesn’t have the world’s biggest safety net waiting to save him) as Zweig.

It’s a masterful performance from the The Crown actor, and you find yourself both drawn to him and hating him as quickly as one can volley a shot over the net. Faist’s insecurity and deference to Tashi is the ideal opponent for O’Connor, but his soft mannerisms belie a much more manipulative undercurrent.

Challengers is a tense, thrilling and hilarious journey, perfectly punctuated by an almost scene-stealing score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It’s hard to draw comparisons to anything else, because this movie feels unlike anything I’ve seen to date.

There’s a moment late — don’t worry, no spoilers — where you realize something monumental is going to happen. Guadagnino masterfully builds up the scene, and yet somehow manages to keep the payoff remarkably high despite the expectations washing over you mid-scene. The entire theater gasped or leaned forward in their seats or both. A 10-out-of-10 theater moment.

Challengers has consumed my thoughts since I walked out of the theater, and that’s the highest praise I can give. Go see it immediately.

Movie: Challengers
Release Date: April 26 
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Stars: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars