You may glance at Luca Guadagnino’s new film Challengers and assume it is about tennis, and to be fair that might be an understandable mistake. Its three protagonists are all current or former tennis players, and the film relates the events of a leg in the ATP Challenger tour. A lot of scenes in the film portray tennis: the central match is revisited time and again while the narrative flashes back to show teenage tennis, college tennis, and an awful lot of training for tennis. In truth, Challengers is about tennis in the same way John Wick was about animal welfare: it provides a setting and a backdrop, but really the entire enterprise is focused on sex.

Challengers ripples from start to finish with skin, flesh, sweat, and touch. Nowhere does it actually get to the point of characters getting naked and having it off, but the anticipation of sex is drenched over almost every scene. Through flashbacks it tells a 15-year history of three people – a classic love triangle between two men and a woman – and how it comes to dominate and dictate each of their lives. The film introduces its characters at the climax of their stories: Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) is a champion tennis player one victory away from a Grand Slam, but suffers a lack of confidence following an injury. His wife and coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), herself a former top league player, seeks to restore his confidence by entering him into a Challenger event he can easily win. Unexpectedly for them both, the event is also entered into by Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) – Tashi’s ex-boyfriend and Art’s former best friend.

One could find Challengers ridiculous in how excessively it pushes the sexual tension between its leads, but it would be a difficult response to achieve given how gloriously self-aware Guagagnino is of those excesses. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s photography is absolutely stunning. The visuals are intentionally exaggerated to showcase the cast’s attractive bodies. The electronic score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, positively throbs. Scenes deftly pivot from the dramatic to the absurd, and deliver brilliantly at both styles. This back and forth is superbly handled: the non-linear structure of the story achieves a satisfying process of mystery and reveal over and over again, as the full extent of the triangular relationship is exposed.

The performances are exceptional. The complex woven threads of friendship, opposition, and even sexual attraction are played brilliant by Faist and O’Connor. They believably play 15 years of each character’s life, and in a non-linear presentation that never loses track of how they change and develop over the years. As for Zendaya, currently one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, an intelligent and well-thought-out performance finally fulfils the huge potential that has been evident for the last couple of years. The performances, the writing, and the direction are all guaranteed to be in the awards conversation come year’s end.

Guadagnino demonstrates such a canny sense of play here. It is all a game: tennis matches, sexual relationships, personal manipulations. It weaves drama, comedy, sports, and action in a manner that is hugely complex but which comes across as light and effortless. We are a third of a way through the year, and I believe we have reached 2024’s first bona-fide masterpiece.