Tennis Temptress........well sort of
PRAISE: The sports muse thing has been done before in great movies like 1988's Bull Durham but in this story about three tennis prodigies — friends, lovers and foes — across the years through their triumphs and defeats, some shared is not on the same level as the aforementioned. What it gets right is a lot of the dynamics between the characters. Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Zendaya as Tashi Duncan do great in their roles . They look like great players on the court and I thought writer Justin Kuritzkes and
Director Luca Guadagnino did a good job of displaying how and why we end up in certain places in life and with certain people. Sometimes it's through unforseen occurrences,certain loyalties, lust , love, or dissapointment. A lot of scenes ring true about competitions in life , jealousy and really wanting something or someone just for yourself
I liked how the movie states how mainly everything in life is a competition and goes beyond the professional sport a person is playing. I started thinking about all of the professional athletes out there and what kind of support they are getting from their spouses or significant others. This is where Zendaya gives her strongest laser focused performances she's somewhere between loving and a steely coach.
PROBLEMS : There is a lot of hype about the "threesome" that takes place in the movie but it definitely pulls back on it and adds some turns that I and likely other people who watch this movie won't get on board with or find predictable. While some of the scenes including club beat music worked at times it drowned out what the characters were saying in some scenes. I definitely didn't like the climax of the movie. I kept wondering why they just didn't let things play out in which they were with some good camera work and pauses but they added a few things that made it seem like a parody.
Scale of 1 to 10 a 7½