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Zendaya has been serving some serious looks in promotion of Challengers, incorporating the sport into her wardrobe with a tennis court-esque green gown, heels sporting bright yellow tennis balls and a netted white maxi dress. But the red carpet apparently isn’t the only place the actress is bringing the heat. Critics have screened the romantic sports drama ahead of its theatrical release April 26, and they are praising the performances in what sounds like a sexy, sweaty romp.
From what we know about Challengers, tennis phenom-turned coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) is trying to help her husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) out of a slump by entering him in a challenger event. This backfires when he ends up competing against his former best friend Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who happens to also be Tashi’s ex-boyfriend. Let’s see what the critics are saying, starting with Tasha Robinson of Polygon, who calls the movie “blisteringly sexy,” writing:
Challengers is a sharp and snappy movie, full of big emotions expressed through fast-paced dialogue in some scenes and through silent, sensual physicality in others, all shot with creative verve and aggressively in-your-face energy. Everyone in this movie is chasing sex and success, and conflating those things with each other in unashamedly provocative ways.
Coleman Spilde of The Daily Beast says moviegoers should bring a towel to this incredible (and incredibly horny) film, with director Luca Guadagnino creating something that is wholly unpredictable, playful and “intriguingly erratic” en route to its big climax. The critic says:
Luca Guadagnino’s latest film is a fluid, psychosexual heater paced as fast and as thrilling as any tennis tournament. Drama is spiked across the net and volleyed back and forth between the movie’s three players in a fiery match with everything at stake. In the film, tennis is very much a three-person sport, and every new serve feels like it’s for the match point. Advantage oscillates between a different person with each scene. Heat swells, tensions flare, and skin is slick with perspiration, but fatigue never once sets in—for the characters or the audience.
Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com rates it 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying that like a professional athlete, Challengers doesn’t aim just to entertain — it came to win. The critic writes:
Luca Guadagnino directs Challengers, a time-shifting drama about a love triangle between tennis pros, as if he’s a top-seeded player so ruthlessly focused on winning Wimbledon that he’d run over his grandmother if she got between him and the stadium. Every shot is a serve, every montage a volley. There’s even part of one match done from the point-of-view of a ball being smacked to-and-fro at high speed. It’s extravagantly goofy. But it’s also hilarious and wonderful, because it’s an objective correlative for how far the film will go to entertain you.
Maureen Lee Lenker of EW grades Challengers an A-, calling it a “grand slam of psychsexual passion and tension,” and saying it’s a must-see for movie lovers. Lenker follows other critics in lauding the leading trio’s performances, but also says Luca Guadagnino’s choices help to blur the line between sport and sex. The critic writes:
This almost campy emphasis on sexual power dynamics is enhanced by Guadagnino’s shooting style. The director positions his camera in unexpected places, shooting a sloppy, tongue-filled kiss from a low-angle close-up, turning the audience into the tennis ball zooming back and forth, and even showing us the match from beneath the men’s shoes. We can viscerally feel the physical strain of the sport through these choices; the way the lift of a shirt’s hem or the spring of a graceful serve is as carnal as sex for these three people. In Guadagnino’s hands, sex is a tennis match.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich also gives the movie an A-, calling Challengers “hugely satisfying,” with the competition turned up to such a degree that the sex scenes are mere foreplay to the erotically charged tennis matches. Ehrlich says:
[The plot] might sound like the set-up for a relatively straightforward — if refreshingly bi-curious — romantic comedy, but Challengers is a far cry from Wimbledon, and Guadagnino couldn’t give less of a shit about who comes out on top at the end. On the contrary, the Call Me by Your Name director was likely turned on by the sensual backspin of Justin Kuritzkes’ script, which subverts the typical stakes of each match in order to focus on the animating thrill of wanting something with every flooded sweat gland on your body.
The critics certainly seem excited about Challengers, and that’s reflected by even more than those above, as the movie is currently sporting a 96% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 45 critics so far. If you want to see Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist in action, their movie hits theaters on Friday, April 26. You can also check out our 2024 movie calendar to see what else is coming soon to theaters.