Challengers: Luca Guadagnino’s centerpiece in this drama is a tennis match between two former best friends, but the film bounces back and forth in time to tell the complex relationship between them and the woman both loved and one married. The film is unafraid to have a trio of relatively unlikeable characters as protagonists, and it compensates by having energy and sexiness to spare. Zendaya plays a former teen star, a highly ambitious and driven young woman who is also more than a bit manipulative; it is a fine performance. Mike Faist plays her husband, a multi-champion in a downturn, and Josh O’Connor, his old friend and rival, now a washed-out never-has-been. The acting is solid throughout. Their relationship equates control, success, and sex, and it is pleasurably complex. Editor Marco Costa and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, with an assist from the VFX team, get very inventive in how they show the sports sequences. Still, the pace can falter a bit at times when the action is off-court. The musical score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, is very energetic.