Review: Zendaya shines like the true movie star she is in 'Challengers'

Who doesn't like a swoony, sexy romantic triangle of a sports movie? We haven't had a classic one in ages, I'm thinking 1988's "Bull Durham." So step up for the tantalizing, time-tripping, curveball-throwing "Challengers," now in theaters starring the talented trio of Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist as tennis pros in a tangle of erotic mischief off the court and on.

In tennis, love starts with zero and rockets up from there. The same goes for "Challengers," directed by master sensualist Luca Guadagnino ("Call Me By Your Name") with a knack for finding the hilarious and hardcore in any game -- tennis and sex included.

Zendaya, a double Emmy winner for "Euphoria," glitters like gold dust as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy sidelined by injury into giving it up as a player.

Instead, she's coaching her husband Art Donaldson, remarkably played by Faist, who scored onstage in "Dear Evan Hansen" and on screen as Riff in Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story."

Art is on a losing streak, which prompts Tashi to set up a Challengers match with Patrick (a standout O'Connor, an Emmy winner as Prince Charles in "The Crown"), who was once Art's best friend and Tashi's lover.

Complications ensue, but not in the straight ahead way you think.

For instance, the film begins and ends with a tennis match that pits Art and Patrick against each other while Tashi watches and the camera (kudos to the stunningly kinetic artistry of cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and editor Marco Costa) practically does somersaults to catch every point of view, including that of a tennis ball with a life all its own.

Guadagnino and gifted newbie screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, driven by a dazzling score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, prefer mad jumble as their default mode.

The whiplash is worth it, especially for a flashback to Tashi invading a hotel room shared by the boys and sparking a puppyish threeway that ends with Art and Patrick making out and Tashi smiling wickedly.

As Tashi teasingly says, "I'm taking such good care of my little white boys."

The scene is pure Guadagnino, R-rated carnality that is less graphic than bursting with teasing sexual tension done for frisky laughs and drama-fueled insights into the trio's dynamics 13 years into the present. The action carries over onto the courts where relationships are delineated through every smash and volley.

In no way does "Challengers" take the conventional route. There are things to like and loathe about all three of the manipulative main characters. And yet, Guadagnino draws us to them, letting us see how they only feel in the game when they're gaming each other.

The actors nail every nuance in their roles. Faist finds glints of genuine vulnerability in Art's futile attempts to pin down the quicksilver diva that is Tashi. And O'Connor, juggling Patrick's attraction to both Tashi and Art, makes his struggle the life of the film.

You won't be able to take your eyes off Zendaya. After supporting roles in epic special-effects franchises from "Spider-Man" to "Dune," Zendaya -- now 27 -- seizes her leading role and rides it to glory like the true movie star she is.

It's this director and these actors who make this routine romantic fluff feel thrillingly fresh and exuberantly young and alive, like something out the French New Wave that breezed in last century. The odds are that "Challengers" is going to leave you breathless. Game on.