★★★★★ Challengers
"I submit that tennis is the most beautiful sport there is1 and also the most demanding," David Foster Wallace (a former semi-professional junior player himself) once wrote. We submit that Challengers is the least demanding horny tennis movie there is, easily wresting the title from Match Point. We’ve waited for what feels like forever for Luca Guadagnino’s latest flick, starring Zendaya and her two “little white boys” (Mike Faist, clean blonde; Josh O’Connor, filthy brunette). It finally came. If you haven't already, contact every girl you know and book a group trip to Nova immediately. This is an Occasion. Guadagnino is our era’s premiere auteur of lustful luxury. He has turned his eye towards extremely varied milieus: Russian-Milanese aristocrats, remote island rock stars, Greco-Roman villa gays, US military brat enbies, vampires (we don’t talk about the unfortunate Amazon Suspiria remake. Nein, Luca!). In Challengers, to a pulsating Reznor and Ross electro score, we enter the world of green (and blue) balls, multi-million-dollar sports car sponsorships, flirty little white dresses, and an endless parade of perfectly toned pro-athlete limbs. You’ve all seen the trailer: adolescent prodigy Tashi shatters her knee just when she’s set to go pro and, flash forward to adulthood, turns to coaching instead. She bounces back and forth between Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig, childhood best friends locked in constant competition for the game and the girl (they’re impossible to separate). Tashi settles on marrying and coaching the malleable, disciplined Art, but her ex Patrick…no spoilers! We will say that the energy in our sold-out cinema was Aussie Open courtside levels. And the climactic shots, filmed from the perspective of a ping-ponging tennis ball, then from below the court in a pervert’s up-short gaze, then from the players' POVs, Peep Show style, really took the romp to another level. If we had any criticisms, they might be that the movie is kind of dumb (who cares), kind of silly (really a strength), and that Zendaya is just too cool. Too collected. Too much of a stone cold, no-bra camel cashmere sweater business bitch, expensively moisturised to a sheen of semi-alien unrelatability. When has anyone ever looked that good drinking an Orangina, for god's sake? But these are junior circuit quibbles. Challengers is quite obviously the funnest and sexiest movie of the year. Immediately after watching, TPE's editors started looking for a fourth for doubles, and [redacted] started looking for a third for [redacted]. "COME ON!"
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Paris End to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.