Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is a blend of new and old. It’s contemporary in appearance but also nostalgic. It’s not merely about tennis or love. It’s more like an updated version of the late 90s and early 2000s erotic thrillers. Think Cruel Intentions (1999). For Gen Z today, Challengers is campy, queer, and full of psychosexual games. It’s got campy fashion, great music, and power games reminiscent of Kathryn’s drama in Cruel Intentions.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a particular type of movie enjoyed widespread popularity. It was manipulative and full of social privilege. Cruel Intentions is a prime example. It’s an adaptation of the French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The movie takes place in Manhattan’s elite private school set. The characters employ desire and deception as weapons. The dialogue is crisp, theatrical and somewhat overdone. It’s performative, not spontaneous. That technique heightens the drama. The music is equally crucial. It blends sultry rock, orchestral numbers and haunting cover versions. It creates scenes to feel intense and emotive. Visuals and music complement each other. They establish a mood of control, seduction and war of emotions. The city scenes and tennis courts are not merely sports. They are turned into arenas of power and manipulation.
Challengers have that same feel. Guadagnino’s film is teeming with desire, ambition, jealousy and cruelty. The locale (tennis courts and upscale social life) happens to look like Cruel Intentions. But in place of Manhattan prep schools, it employs sports and personal intrigue.
Challengers Cast at the Pacific Design Center
Challengers’ dialogue is stylised. It’s exaggerated, theatrical and meticulously manufactured. Characters speak as if they’re performing in a game. Each word is a significant challenge, tease, or prod. It’s campy, artificial and enjoyable to observe.
Music plays a key role. The film uses a pulsating non-diegetic soundtrack. It drives the emotional rhythm, like Vivaldi’s music does in classical works. The music heightens tension and intimacy. It’s not just the background; it’s part of the story. The sound design makes scenes more intense and emotional.
Both films toy with queer motifs. Cruel Intentions was infamous for queerbaiting (the suggestion of queer desire without representing it). It created mystery and tension. The film blurred boundaries of friendship, love, and competition.
Challengers build on this tradition. It is informed by contemporary, more liberal attitudes towards gender and sexuality. Romances are complicated. Rivalry and desire get entangled. The psychosexual games come to the fore. Desire is transformed into a means of control and defiance.
Why is this style trending again? Because Gen Z is obsessed with camp and over-the-top aesthetics. Camp is all about artifice, exaggeration, and knowing humour. It’s playful and self-referential.
Influenced by platforms such as TikTok, Challengers are Platforms like TikTok inform Challengers. The quick cuts, flashy graphics, and dramatic scenes of the film make it look like short videos. The scenes are staged to grab attention quickly. Its meme-like dialogue and style make it go viral. It’s designed to go viral.
Gen Z’s relationship with nostalgia is also complex. They love to remix old culture with irony and affection. Challengers blend older styles with newer concepts. It pays homage to the 90s and early 2000s but is created for a digital, intersectional reality.
Challengers is not only a new film. It’s a retro-infused throwback to the thrillers of the late 90s and early 2000s. It employs over-the-top dialogue, edgy music, queer suggestions, and a campy aesthetic. It’s a contemporary remake of Cruel Intentions, tailored for modern tastes.
Challengers is both new and nostalgic. It rekindles the erotic thriller’s fun anarchy. And yet, it does this in a manner suited to the TikTok generation.