BRIAN VINER: The Italian director Luca Guadagnino certainly can't be accused of making boring films. His last, 2022's Bones And All, was about cannibalistic serial killers.
Luca Guadagnino's tennis movie, "Challengers," starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor, is so much more. Review.
Luca Guadagnino’s sizzling, sharply scripted drama, co-starring Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, is such fun it’s almost indecentNobody harnesses horniness quite like Luca Guadagnino. With his lavish, luxurious portrait of forbidden lust, the Tilda Swinton-starring I Am Love, Guadagnino embraced one of cinema’s most cliched symbolic sensual devices, filling the frame with come-hither shots of delectable food. But somehow, in his hands, this hackneyed metaphor feels fresh, and the film is a...
On June 20, 2022, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor sat at the edge of a motel bed on either side of Zendaya, kissing, licking and biting her neck. As Art and Patrick, their respective “Challengers” characters, they were desperate for more of Tashi, played by Zendaya, and desperate to mask their desperation. Zendaya’s mind was […]
Challengers won game, set and match at the box office over the weekend. The sports drama starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist took the day with slightly more than $15 million in ticket sales.
With Luca Guadagnino's latest feature, sexual tensions take place on the tennis court.
Zendaya serves up a deliciously savage tennis queen at the center of the love triangle drama "Challengers."
To achieve greatness, the movie needs to provide genuine excitement and realistic drama on the court.
To achieve greatness, the movie needs to provide genuine excitement and realistic drama on the court.
“Challengers” won the box office game on its first night in theaters, earning over $6.2 million on Friday,
The French monks who invented tennis nine centuries ago must be blushing that Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” exposes their sport (jeu de paume, or “game of the palm”) as one reeking of sexual frustration. The eroticism starts with the racquet. Firm on one end, yielding on the other, its very parts — the shaft, throat, head, rim, butt — are named with a wink-wink. There’s a moment in “Challengers” when a player places his fuzzy ball in the throat of his racquet and you know exactly what he...
How sexy can a qualifying tennis tournament in New Rochelle, New York, be? When the on-court drama involves Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, the answer turns out to be quite a bit more than your average USTA singles match in Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.”