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Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers leaves its sex on the court. In the film, now in theaters, Zendaya stars as Tashi, a former rising star on the tennis circuit who finds herself caught in the net of a love triangle between two best friends and rival players, played by Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.
Challengers is brimming with sensuality, despite not actually having any sex scenes. Instead, in Guadagnino’s hands, it’s all in the serve. He gets the audience right up to the line, but never takes them over it. It creates a hunger in the movie, an insatiable horniness that is only satisfied by the electrifying matches on the court. The sexiest scene isn’t even the much-publicized threesome scene between Tashi and her “little white boys,” as she calls them. (Though that scene is even steamier than the trailer led you to believe.)
Instead, the film’s sexual tension hits its apex as two guys chow down on churros –– and we aren’t kidding. About midway through the film, which volleys back and forth between a 2019 match-up between the boys and flashbacks to the trio’s history together, Art (Faist) and Patrick (O’Connor) are reconnecting in a Stanford University cafeteria.
Art and Tashi are students on tennis scholarships, while Patrick has chosen to try his chances at touring matches. Patrick and Tashi are “dating,” a term loosely batted around by both after he won her in a tennis match with Art the year prior. Patrick has come to visit his girlfriend, but he’s also there to see his best friend. By this point, the three have already shared a night of sexual tension and kissing –– between all three of them and then just the boys. It has left an unrequited lust lingering in the air over every conversation.
As the boys chow down on two sugary churros and catch up, Patrick pokes and prods his much more reserved friend about how he’s been connecting with Tashi. Art plays coy, even though he has been talking to their shared siren every chance he gets. He wants her, and Patrick knows it. Patrick is egging him on, telling him he’s proud of him for moving in on his girlfriend. Because that is what he would do, Patrick says.
All the while, the churros are whittled down bite by bite, cinnamon dust on their lips as they smile and touch each other’s shoulders. Guadagnino’s film went to the school of Ocean’s Eleven, in which Brad Pitt’s character was always eating. That is the case here. Patrick is almost always wolfing something down, a noteworthy character choice considering his first present-day scene finds him somewhat destitute and starving. It’s a not-so-subtle acknowledgment that, in the years since his falling out with Tashi and Art (as seen over the course of the flashbacks), he’s lost the sustenance in his life.
MGM / Everett Collection
But as younger men in this cafeteria, Patrick is still playfully caught in the crosshairs between them. With churros in hand, they slowly creep closer to each other, eventually holding mere inches away from each other’s faces and igniting something more than just conversation. Before long, Patrick is done with his churro and grabs Art’s. He uses his teeth to pull the half-eaten snack farther out of its sleeve and tears off a big bite –– never breaking eye contact with Art.
There are no tennis rackets in hand, but the boys are in a full-on rally. Serving each other the opportunity to playfully jab at the other’s insecurities over Tashi, which turns them both on a little bit. As much as they are infatuated with her, they also like the effect she has on them. That’s why they like playing tennis together, because they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses better than anyone.
Eventually, they two get to a point of such frisky conversation that Art tries to grab the churro from Patrick, but all he gets is a handful of cinnamon sugar. So he rubs it on Patrick’s face, a truly overwhelming sexual gesture for anyone paying attention. As it shimmers in the faint stubble on Patrick’s face, it’s hard not to see these guys as locked in a bit of foreplay.
Patrick passingly tries to wipe off the lingering dust of Art’s touch on him, but it’s still there for the audience to focus on. As they approach the end of this verbal set, their noses are so close you aren’t sure where one ends and the other begins. It is then that Patrick does something that can only be described as an erotic climax. He feeds the churro to Art, who gnaws off a piece like an animal bearing his teeth through a flirtatious smile.
With that, the scene ends and no one would fault you for taking a deep breath or swatting away the urge for a cigarette. It was hot, and it was meant to be. These two guys have already made out and shared other intimate experiences, as they tell Tashi. But over churros, they are at their most seductively mischievous.
While the moment is a comical metaphor for that complicated relationship that has been brewing between the boys since they were teenagers, it is also a pure distillation of how Guadagnino challenges the idea of connection in the film. These three people don’t find sex to be a satisfying form of connection because that should be a game of equals. Instead, everything is a competition for this trio and there’s nothing hotter than winning –– whether it is with rackets or churros.
Challengers, April 26, In Theaters Now