A bawdy tennis drama involving a love triangle is my must-see movie this week. Challengers,directed by Luca Guadagino, serves up a saucy storyline which is brimming with sexual tension, humour, and well written characters
Zendaya stars as Tashi, whose hopes of tennis superstardom were dashed by a crunching injury. She has pivoted into tennis management, but her only client is her husband Art (Mike Faist, who you might recognise from West Side Story).
Art is losing his va-va-voom and serving up too many double faults (get me with the tennis lingo!), so he enters a lower league contest in a bid by his manager to bolster his confidence. The only issue is that he has to face Patrick on court (Josh o' Connor), who was Art's best friend until love rivalry derailed things.
Through a series of flashbacks, the film takes us through the three characters' history, and it's not only the scoreline on court that keeps changing. Who will ultimately win Tashi's affections? How far will both players go to win?
I loved the pulsing techno soundtrack, and unlike so many films these days, it's subtle and unrushed in its storytelling. There's not actually that much tennis in it, so if you're not a fan of the sport, that's honestly not an issue. Not one to watch with your parents, though!
Tarot was a Friday afternoon guilty pleasure, as a group of high school students rent a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere, and decide the smart move when coming across a locked off room is to explore its contents anyway. Not wise, especially when they crack open the creepy old box of tarot cards, and the predictions begin to come true.
This really reminded me of the Final Destination films, and much like those movies, the characters are quite thinly drawn, so ultimately they feel quite disposable as they meet a grisly demise. In fact, in a lot of ways, aside from the appearance of smartphones, this film could have been made in the year 2000. The Final Destination rollercoaster film put me off them for life!
If you see Tarot and expect to be scared witless, you'll be disappointed, There are a few well signposted jump scares, but rather than being an out-and-out horror, this is more of a thriller I'd say. I enjoyed some of the grisly deaths (sounds a bit weird writing that, but you know what I mean), and a lot of it feels very tongue-in-cheek, and knowingly a little bit trashy. I'm not sure if that's the vibe they were going for, in fairness.
It's undemanding, quite silly, and the kind of movie I can imagine curling up to watch on the sofa with salted popcorn and peanut M&Ms on a Friday night in my onesie. I wouldn't rush to see it on the big screen, though.
A word on In The Land of Saints and Sinners on Netflix to finish....the best Liam Neeson film since Taken. An Irish-infused Western. Not high budget, but very enjoyable.
Alex B Cann weekly film column
