‘Challengers’ Review — Watching and wanting in Luca Guadagnino’s electrifying new film

A review of the new tennis drama, in theaters Friday April 26th

Toward the beginning of Luca Guadagnino’s electrifying new tennis drama Challengers, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) whispers, “What do you want?” The question will come back around toward the end, now pointed in a new direction. “What else could I want?” she wonders.

The gap and nuance between those two questions — a gap that spans years, loves, hookups, tennis matches, injuries, and both personal and professional devastation — is the central driving theme of the film. This is a movie about wanting, about desire, about letting yourself long and strive and strain for what your body tells you it needs. Often, that’s another body. This is a movie that loves bodies, loves the way sweaty men look as they play tennis, and as they chase a girl, and maybe, sometimes, each other. This is a movie that wants us to want it, to positively drool over its stars, who are filmed in such a way that they feel like the three hottest people to ever lead a movie. And it’s a movie that wants us to delight in the act of wanting, and of watching, of feeling our desire be inextricably wound up in the way we’re looking at these people.