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In the last few years, many writers have wondered why no one makes great sex scenes anymore. The Idol seems to have silenced that talk temporarily, giving us plenty of sex but maybe at the cost of that sex feeling jaded and decadent.
Which makes this the perfect time to remind the world of the existence of Luca Guadagnino, the arthouse darling who gave us Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet and that peach in Call Me By Your Name and romantic cannibalism in Bones And All. If Sam Levinson gives us sex that’s really about trauma, Guadagnino offers trauma that’s really about sex.
Guadagnino is back with Challengers, set for release this September, whose first trailer dropped today. Starring Zendaya as a professional tennis player named Tashi, it’s a movie ostensibly set in the world of tennis that seems to be more about a love triangle. When a shirtless sweaty guy waves his banana at another shirtless sweaty guy in a Luca Guadagnino movie (see: the 38-second mark of the Challengers trailer), you know it’s not just a banana. (There’s also “just the tip” of a churro at 1:07.)
Mike Faist (West Side Story) plays Tashi’s husband, Art, with Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles in The Crown) playing Patrick, Tashi’s former lover and best friend. Zendaya reportedly trained for three months with former tennis pro Brad Gilbert for the role, about which Guadagnino told Variety back in October, “ We edited the movie and we almost actually don't use any of her double. She's so good.”
With a score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and a script by Justin Kuritzkes, the official synopsis in the trailer description says Challengers features Zendaya as “Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy now married to a champion on a losing streak.” Apparently Tashi has her own plan to get her husband’s career back on track until things “take a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick – his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.” Sounds like a good time!
If Bones and All was introspective and think-y, Guadagnino has signaled that Challengers will be anything but, telling Indiewire that it would be his “first comedy” and calling it “a fairly fizzy, sexy movie about the world of tennis.”