挑戦者s (15, 131 minutes)
判決: Game, 始める，決める and love match
The Italian director Luca Guadagnino certainly can't be （刑事）被告 of making boring films. His last, 2022's Bones And All, was about cannibalistic serial 殺し屋s, one of them played by the heartthrob du jour, Timoth?e Chalamet.
Guadagnino's 最新の, 挑戦者s, is about a love triangle, which is one of the most hackneyed of all cinematic 支配するs, but let's just say he gives it topspin by setting it in the unforgiving world of professional tennis and giving Zendaya, hot-foot from Dune: Part Two, her best and sexiest 役割 yet at the triangle's apex.
The writer is Justin Kuritzkes, whose wife Celine Song bagged a Best 初めの Screenplay 指名／任命 at this year's 学院 Awards for her charmer Past Lives. Kuritzkes deserves 類似の 承認 for a 悪賢い, smart narrative, which 素早い行動s us 支援する and 前へ／外へ in time in the stories of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her 貧困の husband Art Donaldson (マイク Faist), and Art's former best friend and （テニスなどの）ダブルス partner, the roguish Patri ck Zweig (Josh O'Connor), who is also Tashi's ex-boyfriend.
Guadagnino's 最新の, 挑戦者s, is about a love triangle, which is one of the most hackneyed of all cinematic 支配するs, but let's just say he gives it topspin by setting it in the unforgiving world of professional tennis
Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her 貧困の husband Art D onaldson (マイク Faist), and Art's former best friend and （テニスなどの）ダブルス partner, the roguish Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), who is also Tashi's ex-boyfriend?
All three are hugely 約束ing young players, Tashi (pictured, played by Zendaya) 特に, until her ambitions are 難破させるd by a 膝 傷害
All three are hugely 約束ing young players, Tashi 特に, until her ambitions are 難破させるd by a 膝 傷害. Instead she turns to coaching, marries Art, and guides him to no より小数の than six Grand 激突する 肩書を与えるs.?
Patrick, 一方／合間, has slipped to 271 in the world 最高位のs. He's broke and has to sleep in his car on the eve of a low-最高位の 挑戦者s 小旅行する event in New Rochelle, New York, unaware that the tournament has an exciting wild-card 入ること／参加（者）, tennis's poster boy, Art, who is trying to get some 平易な 勝利，勝つs under his belt in 準備完了 for the US Open.
必然的に, the pair 会合，会う in the New Rochelle final, but by now they're estranged and, needless to 追加する, Tashi is the 推論する／理由 why.?
That's pretty much the film's one-line synopsis, so it needs lots of 事実上の／代理 heft and directorial guile to elevate it from what would さもなければ be a jumped-up soap オペラ.
On the whole, it gets them. The trio of leads are splendid, Guadagnino uses thudding music to such an extent that the synthesizer is 事実上 an extra character, and, crucially, the 冒険的な 活動／戦闘 fizzes with authenticity while engaging us 肉体的に in our cinema seats by 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing balls 事実上 into the レンズ of the camera. I flinched, anyway.
挑戦者s is not a classic, and might not even be one of Guadagnino's best three movies, but it's 有望な, sexy, witty and fun, and says enough about the 需要・要求するs of エリート tennis and how it 影響する／感情s 関係s to be considered a bona fide sports film, even though ― and this is a 二塁打-握りこぶしd backhanded compliment ― it's really just about a love match.
マイク Faist 星／主役にするs as Art and Zendaya as Tashi
(L-R) マイク Faist, Zendaya and Josh O'Connor 提起する／ポーズをとる for a portrait to 促進する '挑戦者s' on Friday, April 19, 2024
Cast members Zendaya, マイク Faist and Josh O'Connor …に出席する a 首相 for the film '挑戦者s' in Los Angeles, California, on April 16, 2024
It is not, however, even the best film of the week by an Italian director. That accolade goes to the Italian-language There's Still Tomorrow (初めの 肩書を与える C'? Ancora Domani).
?It's the directorial debut of actress Paola Cortellesi, who co-wrote the screenplay and plays the 女性（の） lead ― and it's wonderful, indeed it was the biggest 粉砕する at the Italian box office last year, 核兵器ing Oppenheimer and besting Barbie.
It is 始める，決める in 1946 in Rome, a city still reeling from the war and patrolled by American 軍の policemen.?
Cortellesi plays Delia, a hard-working mother of three 罠にかける in an abusive marriage to the brutish Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea), tyrannised by him and by the needs of everyone else in the 世帯, 含むing her bedridden father-in-法律.
If that sounds grim, it is, although there are a few rays of sunlight 侵入するing the gloom: the attentions of an old lover, the kindliness of an American MP, the empathy of Delia's friends, the 差し迫った 約束／交戦 of her daughter.?
But there's also something else going on, on which Cortellesi at first lets us in only tangentially, setting up a surprising 結論 that, truly, will make you want to 元気づける.
It's a picture of tremendous, いつかs whimsical charm and not a little mischief, filmed in 黒人／ボイコット-and-white in the style of 広大な／多数の／重要な 作品 of Italian neorealism such as Roberto Rossellini's 1945 masterpiece, Rome, Open City, to which it would make a perfect companion piece. Honestly, it's that good.
All films are in cinemas now.
Ordinary Angels
判決: Swank brings 信用性 to '約束-based' heartwarmer
In Ordinary Angels, Hilary Swank plays an アル中患者 Kentucky hairdresser who finds 目的 in her 哀れな life by helping a widower (Alan Ritchson, best-known as Jack Reacher in the アマゾン Prime ビデオ series) raise the 基金s to 支払う／賃金 for a 決定的な 組織／臓器 移植（する） for his young daughter.?
It's 法案d as a '約束-based' film, which usually means saccharine or maudlin, but Swank gives it a 手段 of 信用性.
In Ordinary Angels, Hilary Swank (pictured) plays an アル中患者 Kentucky hairdresser who finds 目的 in her 哀れな life by helping a widower (Alan Ritchson)
