Challengers is the sensual, satisfying cure for sexless cinema

polygon.com:

America is on a puritanical streak. Politically, individual states and the federal government keep looking for ways to completely outlaw abortion (and birth control, and health care for trans people, and books), while on social media, there’s been one hand-wringing discussion after another about whether movies should ever have sex scenes. The push to get blockbusters in front of a global audience has come with widely noticeablerestrictions on sexual content — or even basic kissing. In modern studio movies, as R.S. Benedict put it, everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.

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All of which makes Luca Guadagnino’s sweaty, panting sports-and-sex romantic drama Challengers feel like a thumbed nose (or a raised middle finger) aimed at American Puritanism and an increasingly sex-negative culture. Challengers is a sharp and snappy movie, full of big emotions expressed through fast-paced dialogue in some scenes and through silent, sensual physicality in others, all shot with creative verve and aggressively in-your-face energy. Everyone in this movie is chasing sex and success, and conflating those things with each other in unashamedly provocative ways.

Challengers is also, incidentally, a movie about tennis.

Zendaya, who also co-produced the movie, stars as Tashi Donaldson, a former teenage tennis superstar whose competition days ended with a traumatic knee injury. Once she reluctantly, angrily gave up on her own tennis career, she became a pro coach, leading her husband, Art (West Side Story standout Mike Faist), to a string of championships and a lucrative