‘Challengers’ is a Sexy, Ripping Love Match (Review)

The guys of Challengers have arrived at the 2024 Met Gala!

Glamour's senior west coast editor Jessica Radloff said it first: Challengers is set to be the .That's certainly the case here in the office. Some staffers loved it (hi, hello), while others were disappointed or worse—bored.

standout soundtrack, Challengers is one of the best films of 2024.Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the spicy sports drama follows professional tennis champion Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) who is plotting a career comeback with the help of his wife Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former tennis rising star who was forced to retire due to an injury.At a tournament, however, Art is matched against Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is his former best friend and his wife’s ex lover.Along with starring in the film, Zendaya also serves as a producer alongside Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor and Amy Pascal.The entirety of Challengers is told in a nonlinear fashion, as the love triangle between Art Donaldson, Tashi Duncan and Patrick Zweig is unraveled through flashbacks in the build-up to the climactic tennis match in the present.A day prior to the match between Art and Patrick, Tashi tells her husband Art that if he loses the match, she will leave him – in what’s pitched as a motivator to spur him to win in order to get his tennis career back on track. Later on, Tashi meets with Patrick to ask him to throw the match in Art’s favour, and while he hesitantly agrees, the pair end up briefly rekindling their past romance and have sex in the back of a car.At the match in the present, just as Patrick looks to throw the match by losing points with foul serves, he communicates to Art that he had sex with his wife the night prior by placing his tennis ball against the centre of his racket before his serve – something he did years prior when he first started dating Tashi.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director SPOILER ALERT: This article contains plot details for “Challengers,” now playing in theaters. All Tashi Duncan wanted was great tennis. At the end of Luca Guadagnino’s buzzy tennis drama “Challengers,” the camera freezes on Tashi (Zendaya) as she screams “come on!” following a match point volley for the ages between competitors Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). The volley got so intense that it ends with Art leaping over the net and falling into Patrick’s arms.

Challengers, it's clear she's in complete control. From the strong whip of her braid and sexy moonlit skin as a young rising tennis star, to her sharp honey blonde bob and perfect nude manicure as a mother and mogul, Tashi's look is punctuated by power.Of course, her commanding presence on screen is a testament to Zendaya, who plays the tennis champ-turned coach in Luca Guadagnino's new romance drama.

Josh O’Connor is currently starring in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and recently revealed what character he would love to play in the future.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Challengers,” Luca Guadagnino’s enthralling sports opera about three great-looking tennis stars who trade partners, is the latest movie to feature that time-honored configuration, the love triangle. And make no mistake: This one is complicated. It’s no mere either/or thing.

Amazon MGM Studios’ Challengers, starring Zendaya and directed by Luca Guadagnino, made $1.9M in previews, a figure $100K shy of what Universal’s Cocaine Bear did. The tennis sexy romcom is hoping to open to $15M for the weekend.

Challengers, the new tennis-based film starring Zendaya, is out in cinemas tomorrow (April 26).It’s the latest film from acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All), and centres on an intense love triangle between tennis coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and rival racket-thrashers Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), who is also her husband.In a four-star review of the film, NME wrote: “The performances are exceptional, with off-the-scale chemistry between all three leads. Zendaya, in particular, is a force of nature, and you feel her angry frustration at her own career path (which was cut short by injury) in every scene.

Saltburn.”Like Emerald Fennell’s shapeshifting mystery, “Challengers” is, at once, artful, addictive and deceptive. The salivating viewer believes it’s one thing, becomes sure it’s another and then leaves with a different theory altogether.There are more similarities.

Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist are talking Challengers.

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter Game, set… but there’s not much of a match. “Challengers,” a steamy tennis drama starring Zendaya and directed by Luca Guadagnino, is poised to lead the domestic box office without much in the way of competition. The film, from Amazon MGM, is projected to collect $12 million to $15 million from 3,400 North American theaters in its opening weekend.

Zendaya wonders why her kissing scenes get a lot of attention when she’s just doing her job.

Zendaya is a woman on-the-go these days and she admits that no city currently feels like her true home.

From almost all accounts, it seems like Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has another hit on his hands with “Challengers,” a new tennis drama from MGM Studios that’s actually more of a love-triangle romance bundled into the sports genre. Starring Zendaya (Marvel’s “Spider-Man” franchise and the “Dune” series), Josh O’Connor (“Dr.

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” is sweaty, sexy and full of angst. The film, which hits theaters April 26, centers on a love triangle between three tennis players with deeply competitive spirits both in the game and off the court.

Based on the marketing, you might think “Challengers” is at its core, a tennis movie and, well, it sort of is. The film is certainly set in the world of tennis, you can’t deny that, and at one point, Zendaya’s character Tashi Duncan remarks, “We’re always talking about tennis.” The sport is at the center of her life.

Zendaya switched into a second look of the night at the LA premiere of her new movie Challengers held at Westwood Village Theater on Tuesday night (April 16) in Los Angeles.

A year ago, trades announced that Oscar-nominee Austin Butler (“Dune: Part Two“) would be leading a feature film adaptation of the famous Don Winslow crime saga novel “City On Fire” (No, not the similarly-titled Chow Yun-Fat movie that inspired Quentin Tarantino‘s “Reservoir Dogs“). A potential franchise starter for Sony, the crimed dra awould explore two criminal empires, Irish and Italian syndicates, that control New England and has been compared to the scope of something on the level of “The Godfather.” It’s been a long minute since we’ve heard an update, but Deadline reports the project has landed an impressive screenwriter to tackle the script.