“Come on!” shouts a triumphant Tashi at several key points in Challengers. Although the tennis drama was sold as a steamy love triangle between Tashi (Zendaya) and former best friends Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist), director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes had something richer in mind. Between its whiz-bang cinematography and unrelenting electronic score, Challengers offers a thoughtful look at the failure of winning. In between breathless tennis matches, the trio sees how competition and the need to win above all else corrupts their relationships and themselves.
If Challengers was the only movie with this theme to be released in 2024, it would be enough. Election years always have us thinking about the cost of winning and our obsessions with power. But Challengers was just one of many 2024 films that showed sympathy for not just the loser whose dreams fall apart, but also the winner who thinks that their value comes from the number of opponents they best.
Fittingly, two strong boxing films explore this idea, but from very different perspectives. The Fire Inside tells the true story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, portrayed in the film by Ryan Destiny. Under the tutelage of trainer Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry), Shields goes from a neglected girl in the troubled city of Flint, Mich., to a two-time Olympic gold medal winner. Day of the Fight takes a slower, elegiac approach to the material, following recently released former champion Irish Mike Flannigan (Michael Pitt) as he prepares for one last title bout.
Both films feature stunning fight choreography, but they focus more on the communities built during the training and the obligations even the strongest individual owes to others.
Challengers was just one of many 2024 films that showed sympathy for not just the loser whose dreams fall apart, but also the winner who thinks that their value comes from the number of opponents they best.
On a less inspiring note come The Substance and Love Lies Bleeding, two stomach-churning fantasias about pursuing physical perfection. The Substance stars Demi Moore as a past-her-prime movie star who gets a new lease on life when a mysterious chemical restores her youth, portrayed by Margaret Qualley. The New Mexico town in which the noir Love Lies Bleeding takes place is far from the Hollywood of The Substance, but the same problems exist there. When sweet but troubled Jackie (Katy O’Brian) comes to town on her way to a Las Vegas bodybuilding contest, she starts a magical romance with Lou Jr. (Kristen Stewart), daughter of crime boss Lou Sr. (Ed Harris).
Both films feature moments of delirious happiness, portrayed through psychedelic visuals. But they also show bodies in pain, twisted into grotesque monstrosities as characters seek to win, sometimes on the screen, sometimes on stage, and sometimes in the criminal underworld.
The year saw a resurgence in religious thriller and horror pictures, whether the Mormon-focused Heretic, the Catholic settings of The First Omen, Immaculate and Conclave, or the witches in the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A. These films do sometimes show how dark forces or skeptics can make people into monsters, as with the coven in Apartment 7A or the charming disbeliever (Hugh Grant) who kidnaps two young missionaries in Heretic.
But other films illustrate how Christians can choose power over service, even while claiming to follow Christ. As the cardinals in Conclave choose a new pope, some go to upsetting lengths to earn the title. Even worse are the church leaders in The First Omen, who take a perverse route to creating believers and expanding the church’s reach.
While these movies help strip back the appeal of the accomplished, it’s also important that Christians engage with stories about those who, like Christ himself, are despised by the world.
These terrifying depictions make explicit a warning to Christians present in many of the best movies of 2024. The world values power and esteem, and it confuses winning with goodness, assuming that those who have the most prestige or popularity somehow deserve it. Christians can fall into the same trap, conflating success with signs of God’s providence. But every Christmas we remind ourselves that God chose to incarnate in the form of a man who “had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2).
Thus, while these movies help strip back the appeal of the accomplished, it’s also important that Christians engage with stories about those who, like Christ himself, are despised by the world. The prison drama Sing Sing and the inventive historical picture Nickel Boys both depict aspects of the country’s systemic racism, the latter through the perspective of two young Black men in 1960s Florida and the former through a breathtaking performance by Colman Domingo. Neither film shies away from the realities of racist violence, but they also celebrate the humanity of the people involved.
When the adolescent leads of Nickel Boys (Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson) look up to see themselves reflected in a mirror, we viewers understand the beauty of God’s creation, the people made in God’s image, people who matter just because they exist. No winning required.
