RACKETEERS

Now in the multiplexes:

Challengers--Two rising teenage tennis stars meet a third at the U.S. Open Juniors, beginning a triangle that defines not only their careers but their lives. That's the premise of this tempestuous sports drama from Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

At the top of the triangle is Tashi, played by the elegant, long-limbed Zendaya, understandably worshipped at first sight by both Al (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor), inseparable friends and doubles partners since childhood. Their passion for her is on different levels, however. Patrick is fascinated by her ferocious physicality; Al suffers true love.

Those who dislike nonlinear storytelling may find Challengers a bit, well, challenging. Even Quentin Tarantino's movies don't usually have timelines this scrambled. The story wanders around over thirteen years, as Tashi has relationships with both Al and Patrick, as estrangements and injuries bedevil the trio, as Al becomes a superstar under Tashi's coaching, as Patrick's career slides to the level of declined credit cards and sleeping in his car. We get subtitles like "13 YEARS EARLIER" or "THREE DAYS LATER" or "MIDNIGHT," but sometimes it's mostly variations in facial hair that help us keep track of where we are in the narrative.

It's worth the effort, though. Challengers starts a little slow, but Guadagnino, working from a script by Justin Kuritzkes, unfolds the story in convincing scenes that gradually accrue emotional punch. There are some risqué passages which, unlike most such sequences, actually forward the story.

The three leads--the rest of the actors here are basically bit players--have charm, which softens how unpleasantly the characters behave at times. The core of the film, of course, is the remarkable Zendaya, a Disney Channel veteran who, after a turn as a pop singer--my wife and I took our kid to see her at the Arizona State Fair more than a decade ago--has carved out a niche as a serious actor in stuff like Euphoria and the Spider-Man and Dune flicks. In Challengers her lissome beauty is balanced by a slouchy, imperious pugnacity. It's a true star turn.

The recurrent thumping techno music on the soundtrack verges on the unintentionally comedic at times. And Guadagnino allows the movie to get a bit operatic in the homestretch, with tortured scenes played out against wild windstorms and scandalous revelations telegraphed across the net before crucial serves in tournament play. But this feels right for a story about how our long-haul lives are shaped by the feverish melodramas we get caught up in as adolescents.