Challengers is so obvious as to what it’s about, it’s refreshing.  There probably is some subtext to be found in the corners of this movie, but this heated tale of lovers who quarrel, have sex and play tennis works overtime to obscure it.  This is the first movie I’ve seen directed by Luca Guadagnino, so I have no idea as to whether his other films are similar to this one.  From what I see in this movie, he strikes me as a director who doesn’t beat around the bush.  He’s a confident filmmaker who is very direct with what he wants to accomplish.  What we see is exactly what he wants us to get.  Guadagnino’s movie doesn’t try to tug at our heart strings, earn our sympathy or ask us to think about what we see very deeply.  If we noodle over a  phrase or a look or what a particular object symbolizes, that is entirely up to us.

Everyone can relate to the idea of redemption.  I don’t mean in a religious sense, but getting another chance to succeed after failing the last time around.  Personally, if I thought about it for ten minutes, I would come up with a number of moments in my life that I wish I could do over.  But life usually doesn’t give us second chances, except when the failure involves sports.  In that case, you may get another chance simply because there’s always another season or, as is with Arthur the King, another race.

In The Beekeeper, Jason Statham plays Adam Clay, a literal beekeeper who works on the country estate of Phylicia Rashad’s Eloise.  How Rashad wound up in a Statham kick-punch vehicle I’ll never understand, but she’s a nice presence for as long as she’s around.  One day, Eloise gets a “Your computer is infected with a virus and you must call this number to clear it up” prompt on her laptop.  Like most senior citizens, she doesn’t know it’s a scam and calls the number.  The office she reaches has people wearing headsets and looks like a repurposed strip club, a telltale sign that the operation is not on the up-and-up.  The MO of this techno boiler room is to trick the person on the other end of the line to hand over their login credentials for their savings accounts.  For a movie that leaves reality behind fairly quickly, I have to acknowledge the filmmakers for using a relatable crime as the genesis for this story, and not the usual mobsters and drugs angle.