The Sexiest Moments In Challengers, Ranked
Spoilers for "Challengers" follow.
I wouldn't be the first writer to suggest that playing competitive sports and f***ing are similar activities. Both are physically exhaustive, both demand at least one partner and, when done right, both leave their players on an emotional high that uplifts their tired bodies. Sex isn't always a competition for dominance (though it certainly can be), but like when you're shooting hoops or boxing an opponent, you have to study the other's body language and react without a moment to spare. Actions speak louder than words, and when you play a game against someone, you reveal yourself almost as much as when you get naked.
That's the conceit of "Challengers," the new tennis romantic drama starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor as three tennis players who share a storied love triangle. Art Donaldson (Faist) and Patrick Zweig (O'Connor) are teenage best friends who fall for the same girl, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). Years later, the two boys are both pro-tennis players and meet for a match in New York. Tashi (now Art's wife and coach after a leg injury scuttled her dreams) looks down on them from the bleachers.
There's actually not much explicit sex in "Challengers," but the tennis scenes are as charged as any sex scenes. It's part of the movie's point that the main characters are driven by the same impulses on the court and in bed. "Challengers" has scored director Luca Guadagnino's biggest box office debut ever, so perhaps audiences aren't as turned off by silver-screen sexiness as my fellow Zoomers presume.
Here are the moments in "Challengers" which will have your blood pumping the most.
3. Tashi and Patrick's intimate argument
The steamiest onscreen moment happens during the leads' college days. Patrick (who's dating Tashi after winning her phone number in a tennis match with Art) visits her. Stripped to their underwear, they start getting hot and heavy in her dorm room. Tashi lays back down on her bed while Patrick slowly crawls on top of her, but she flips it around, pinning his back to the bed while she rides on top (letting the camera pay close attention to Zendaya's figure).
In between the kissing, Tashi keeps up the tennis talk. That kills the mood for Patrick; when he asks Tashi to talk about something other than tennis, she leaps off him, throwing on a T-shirt and stretching in prep for her next match. The chemistry doesn't instantly evaporate, though (especially since Patrick stays shirtless). Guadagnino signs off the scene with an extreme close-up of Tashi and Patrick on opposite ends of the frame; they're close enough to kiss, but they don't.
2. Art and Patrick share churros
It's not a coincidence that the scene preceding Tashi and Patrick's aborted hook-up is one between Patrick and Art. The boys have plenty of chemistry all of their own, and Tashi casts such a wide shadow over them she doesn't even need to be present to bring them physically closer together yet emotionally further apart.
In this scene, the pair talk over churros; phallic foods are common and easy symbolism for love scenes between two men. As usual, Patrick is the more aggressive one. As Art sits in his chair next to Patrick, Guadagnino uses a shot of their feet to show Patrick yanking Art's chair even closer to his. As the conversation plays out, Patrick (scarfing down his churro) keeps himself inches at most from Art's face. Unlike the blocking at other points in the movie, there's nothing between them now. Once Patrick finishes his churro, he swipes Art's, takes a bite, and then holds it out for Art to finish — which Art does. Yum.
1. Tashi, Art, and Patrick's first time in the hotel
Thanks to the marketing campaign for "Challengers," the image most associated with the film is of the three leads on a bed together. When this scene transpires, it doesn't disappoint.
The first night they meet, Tashi visits the two boys in their hotel room and sits on their bed in between them (and she said she isn't a homewrecker). Patrick leans in to kiss her, but Tashi plays the tease and chooses Art — at first. After a moment with Art, she turns over to Patrick and starts making out with him instead. Having let the boys sample a taste each, she brings the three of them together. It begins as Art and Patrick kiss opposite sides of her neck, but before long the three are touching each other's lips all together.
Soon, Tashi leans back and just watches the boys go at it themselves, watching them kiss with the same joy she watches them play tennis. When you've reached a physical high, it's easy to get lost in the moment as Art and Patrick do here (they definitely hadn't been expecting to kiss each other, even if it didn't take much convincing).
The hotel scene is the first and most memorable sexy moment in "Challengers," setting the field for this love triangle's trajectory. Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes used this three-way intimacy to show this is a love story where all three ends of the triangle touch (literally).
"Challengers" is playing in theaters.