The enigmatic Luca Guadagnino revisits many of his usual preoccupations in “Challengers”, his new film set within the world of competitive tennis. Of course you could say tennis is just a device in the Italian filmmaker’s latest swing at provocatively exploring such favorite subjects as sensuality, desire, and obsession. Whether it’s cannibalistic lovers, a coven of witches, or in this case sweaty tennis stars, his films rarely veer too far away from such themes. So you often know what’s underneath the dressing of a Luca Guadagnino film.

Those very fixations can sometimes hinder Guadagnino’s storytelling and that’s once again the case with “Challengers”, a slickly and stylishly made drama that teases a lot more than it delivers. But it’s not just a case of getting too hung up on your own interests. Guadagnino surprisingly pours much more into showing off his stylish filmmaking than offering any incisive and relatable access to his characters. As a result the tennis matches look spectacular but the trio at the story’s center come across as half-written and more contrived than organic.

“Challengers” sees Zendaya playing yet another icy brooding character. This time she stars as Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a tennis prodigy who decides to go to Stanford rather than turn pro. While there she meets Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), two childhood friends and fellow tennis players. Patrick is cocky and straightforward while Art is more earnest and sensitive. Both instantly fall for Tashi, turning into slobbering puppy dogs for no reason other than she’s “hot”. And so the competition begins.

The film’s surface level love triangle comes to light late one evening in a cramped messy hotel room as Tashi, Art, and Patrick gather after a party. It’s where we witness the two seemingly intelligent young men fully devolve into simpleminded saps, to the point of being putty in the hands of the Tashi who we’re to believe is an all-controlling force of nature. It culminates in a scene meant to unveil passion and desire but that isn’t nearly as revealing as it wants to be.

From there Guadagnino needlessly bops back-and-forth across his timeline, a choice that feels considerably more showy than necessary. It all coalesces into a story (written by Justin Kuritzkes) that’s content with following its three main characters rather than fleshing them out. So we’re left with incredibly shallow people and superficial relationships, all fueled by the power of desire and not much else. For Guadagnino that’s enough. For anyone wanting characters who feel real, it may not be.

After their lusty encounter in the hotel, we skip forward in time to where Tashi and Patrick are dating while she’s playing tennis at Stanford. But everything changes after a devastating on-court injury ends her playing career. Jump ahead thirteen years where Tashi has married Art and they have a 5-year-old daughter together. She’s also his coach, leading him to several major championships and making them a veritable power couple in the world of professional tennis. But Art’s current losing streak has put a damper on their high-profile life together. Meanwhile Patrick has fallen on hard times, living out of his car and forced to play on the Challenger Tour for money.

With the prestigious U.S. Open on the horizon, a concerned Tashi schedules the depressed Art in a Challenger tournament as a confidence booster. But wouldn’t you know it, in a stroke of bad luck (and narrative convenience), Patrick is set to play in the same tourney. It forces the former best friends to once again come face-to-face. And of course Patrick has never gotten over Tashi which complicates matters even more. Guadagnino works hard to patch it all together and he’s mostly successful. But it takes a lot of effort to make his nonlinear story cohesive – effort that could have been spent in areas that needed more attention.

As for the performances, all three young stars fully commit and try their best to make each character work. Zendaya’s star power is undeniable and Guadagnino leans heavily on it. But she can only do so much in a role that she doesn’t always seem right for. She spends the vast majority of the film sour and stone-faced. And through no fault of her own, she’s not always the convincing centerpiece Guadagnino desperately needs her to be. Faist and O’Conner are much better fits, but both are shackled to characters whose actions and emotions rarely go beyond skin-deep.

Cleverly shot through the lens of DP Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the tennis scenes portray the sport as almost animalistic in its ferocity. The on-court battles mirror the off-court acrimony and it’s pretty impressive early on. But even it falls apart in the film’s laughably silly finish where we’re hit with countless editing and camera tricks that convey little more than a filmmaker indulging himself (there’s enough slow motion to make Zack Snyder giddy).

It’s not hard to see what Luca Guadagnino is going for with “Challengers”, a sports movie that works hard to not be a sports movie. He treats his story like a tennis match, fueling it with sexual tension and making winning the ultimate objective. Unfortunately his characters suffer. Aside from a shared love for their sport and their warped views of relationships, there’s little else to glean from the thinly sketched trio. Sadly the same can be said for the movie itself. And no amount of pseudo-sexy gloss can change that. “Challengers” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 2 STARS