#luca guadanino

[cuntleone]

get them in the audition room NOW

[mycabbagesbitch]

A rundown of pithy pending Letterboxd reviews I have for Challengers (2024) d. Luca Guadanino

This is the "I Don't Dance" sequence from High School Musical 2 on crack cocaine

Is this what Lorde was talking about when she said "let's go down to the tennis court so we can talk it out like yeah"?

On all levels except physical, those people were having SEX on that tennis court

In my sophomore year of college, the professor of my Dada and Surrealism class insisted that anything, (in this case, a truck,) could be interpreted as a phallus if you try hard enough. Using this perspective has made watching movies 1000000x times more enjoyable. Case and point: that churro scene.

Checkov's "I fucked your wife" ball to racket move my beloved

[appareils-futiles]

I cant give a proper rating to Bones & All until I finish the book. But I will say for those in the Timothée fan groups I'm in that say 'it's too gory', it isn't. I mean you're watching a movie about cannibals so what do you expect?

But, no it's not 'too gory' if 10 is super gory, I'd give the gore a 3.5.

Ya tripping.

[touyatodorokigf]

I just think challengers rewired my brain

[angelshitface]

Bones and All (2022)

(a film by Luca Guadanino)

[andwordsarefutiledevicess]

someone needs to check in on luca guadanino because this man is a little too good at directing movies about yearning

[cowgurrrl]

I Know the End

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (plus platonic Ellie Williams x fem!reader but we focus more on Ellie in this fic)

Author's note: I didn't know how to end this but I kinda love it how it is!!

Summary: "We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything— what a waste." - Luca Guadanino, Call Me by Your Name aka you and Ellie talk about what's important [2.1k]

Warnings: a little bit of backstory, Ellie being a disaster lesbian, fluff, a time jump of sorts (Ellie is 18 and Charlie is 2)

It only took a whole day of running around with Dina and Ellie, but you've never seen Charlie fall asleep so fast. You were exhausted, and Joel had to run errands and then patrol, but Charlie begged to go outside in the spring sunshine the moment she woke up. Dina was supposed to come over and hang out with Ellie alone, but when she heard Charlie's two-year-old demands, she changed their plans. "Let's go to the park!" Dina agreed, much to Charlie's excitement and Ellie's confusion. You watched as Ellie looked at Dina when she wasn't looking, something familiar shifting behind her eyes before she pushed it away. 

They left to go to the park and were out all day. Charlie was half-asleep in Dina's arms when they finally came back, but that didn't stop her from clinging to Dina when you tried to take her. Before the infamous Charlotte Miller pout could take full effect, Dina leaned back so she could look at her. "How about you tell Ellie to invite me over more often so we can play? We don’t even need to hang out with stinky Ellie if you don’t want to.” She said, and Charlie laughed, letting you take her from Dina's arms. Ellie blushed and rolled her eyes at Dina's teasing, but there was no heat behind it. You wonder if you and Joel were as obvious as Ellie and Dina are. Charlie was asleep in bed not even thirty minutes later, absolutely exhausted from her girl's day out. 

When you walk back downstairs, you find Ellie sitting on the porch, watching the last bits of sunshine disappear behind the mountains. Her shoulders are relaxed, and she seems lighter. She doesn't jump when you step onto the porch to join her. Her eyes are stunning in the sunlight, all golden brown and happy. You look out at the purple and pink rays as they shine across the green fields and take a deep breath.

"Charlie said she had fun with you and Dina today." You say, sitting next to her, and she smiles.

"Good, I'm glad," she says. "We had a lot of fun with her." You turn to look at her and see that same blush invading her cheeks. You smile and turn your attention to the chipping paint on one of the chairs Joel built.

"So, you and Dina-"

"Don't." She cuts you off before you can even start, and you laugh. She looks at you like you're crazy, but you shake your head and pull your legs up to your chest. 

"You're an adult. You're allowed to have your own life. I just… would like to be in on it." You say. She sighs and rubs her eyes, the wheels in her head spinning so much that you swear you can hear them.

"It's complicated," she admits, and you smile. You remember the number of times you gave the same answer to Tess when she asked about you and Joel. Saying it was complicated allowed her to fill in the gaps you were too scared to even look at. "What?"

"Nothing. You just sound like someone I used to know." 

"Can I ask you a question?" She asks, and you nod. "How did you... know that you loved Joel?" 

"That's a big question," you admit. She winces and opens her mouth to retract it, but you stop her. "Have I ever told you about how we met? Or what we were like in the beginning?" You ask, and she shakes her head. You look at your wedding band as you trace your memories back to the very beginning and almost laugh at how stupid you two were.

"I met Tess first. She got me out of some trouble with FEDRA, and I owed her a favor. One day, she asked me to do a drop with her smuggling partner. I don't remember what her reasoning was, but I agreed. He hated me. He'll say he didn't, but he did. He thought I was a rat and wanted nothing to do with me."

"Why did he think you were a rat?"

"Because I was." You admit, and Ellie furrows her brows in confusion.

"Wait, what?"

"I had a kid at home that I needed to feed, and I was desperate, so I did the shitty FEDRA jobs, smuggling, raiding, whatever. I made a good amount of money. Not enough to make us rich, but enough for me to keep her alive and buy ammunition when it came through," you say. "When Jane died, I just… kept doing it. I had nothing else to live for, and that kind of hopelessness is a hot commodity in QZs. It makes you deadlier, more ruthless, quicker. People wanted to hire me to do their dirty jobs because they knew I could do it and not flinch."

"I never knew that." She says, and you nod, but you don't look at her. You focus on the chipping paint and how it feels under your nails when you pick at it. "Did you kill innocents?"

"I never asked about the targets, but yeah, probably. Joel's done things like that, but he never got as deep as I did. I think he hated me because he saw how similar we were, and it scared him, but we made a great team. We kept doing runs, and we barely spoke for the first few times but then... I don't know," you shrug, looking up from the paint. "Something changed. I started caring about him, and he started caring about me, but we never talked about it. We just existed together. It annoyed the shit out of Tess, but I think she knew we had to work it out one way or another. When she died, we were both lost. She was our lynchpin. She kept us together and focused. She made us a team," 

"But then we started traveling with you, and he started opening up. We started talking, like really talking, for the first time. We talked about our daughters, our pasts, everything. I saw a different side of Joel that I had never seen before, and I realized how much I loved him. I think I fell in love with him years before that but didn't realize or didn't let myself feel it," you chuckle and shake your head. Ellie's eyes haven't left yours since you started talking. You imagine her brain moving as fast as possible, trying to put the pieces together. "The fucking apocalypse happened. You would think that would make people want to admit their feelings before it's too late, but not us. It took years for us to admit we loved each other. We wasted so much time. And even now that we're married and have you and Charlie, I still wonder how our lives would be different if we had been honest sooner." You look at her pointedly, and she sighs.

"Is this the part where you tell me that love is all we need to heal or whatever bullshit?" 

"No, this is the part where I tell you exactly what I said to Joel years ago," you plant your feet on the porch and turn to look at her fully. "Something terrible happened to you. A lot of terrible, awful things happened to you, and I'm sorry. But you don't need to keep punishing yourself for the past. You are worthy of all the love in the world, and someone is here, willing to give it to you. Don't fuck it up." She doesn't say anything. She just nods. You smile and reach for her hand, her fingers cold to your touch.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I know Dina would be lucky to be loved by you. Any person would be. And when you're ready to bring the person you love home to us, I promise to love them as much as you do, okay?" You ask, and she squeezes you with tears in her eyes.

"Okay." She agrees. You don't say anything more. You don't need to. You just squeeze her back and take in the last bits of sunshine, watching Joel slowly appear over the hill. You laugh together at how small he looks, and Ellie says something about him getting slower as he gets older. You manage to pull it together once he’s close enough to hear, and he smiles seeing you two together.

"Hey there, cowboy." You call as Joel starts walking up to the porch. He walks over and kisses you before walking over and kissing Ellie's forehead.

"What are y'all doing out here?" He asks, squeezing Ellie's shoulders as he stands behind her. She swats at him, making him laugh, but he stays nearby.

"Talking," Ellie answers.

"'Bout what?"

"Us." You say.

"Uh oh."

"When do you think you realized you were in love with me?" You ask, and he smiles.

"From that very first day."

"Bullshit, Miller!" You yell. Thank God Charlie is the world's heaviest sleeper; otherwise, she'd be wide awake. "You were so mean to me when we did that drop."

"You were just as mean as I was."

"I guess that's true," you say. "God, Tess was so annoyed at us."

"She always said that she was gonna lock us in a room one day and not let us out until we figured out what was wrong." He says, and you smile as a pang of bittersweetness hits you. If it weren't for Tess, you would've never met Joel, and you definitely wouldn't have learned to love him without those late-night conversations with her.

"Did she ever do it?" Ellie asks. 

"No, but she sent us on more drops together. Somehow, I think that was her way of forcing us to like each other." 

"Man, she was the coolest."

"She was," you say as you look at Ellie. "She really cared about you." She nods, unsure what to do with that information but taking it in anyways. Ellie looks at you, probably knowing you would be easier to persuade than Joel.

"Is it okay if I stop by Dina's?" She asks, and you smile.

"Be home before the sun comes up, please." You say, still trying to set boundaries with her but also trying to let her be an adult. She's out of the chair and down the porch stairs before you can blink. Joel follows her movement with a confused look but doesn't try to stop her. You walk over to him and wrap your arms around his neck. He snakes his hands around your waist and pulls you close enough to smell his shampoo.

"Didn't they just hang out all day?" He asks, and you laugh.

"She's gotta go do something important. I'm sure she'll tell us about it later," you say. "How was your day?"

"Better now that I'm home." He says as he kisses you, and you roll your eyes. 

"Cheesy."

"Do I get to ask you when you realized you were in love with me now?"

"Oh, I know the exact moment I realized."

"You do?" He asks with a pray, do tell look on his face, and you nod. 

"Yep. It was my birthday, and I didn't want a big fuss, but you and Tess remembered. You got us out of the QZ and took us to one of the old buildings with a picnic that Tess made, and we watched the sunset over Boston. You traded something expensive for a nice bottle of wine, and we passed the bottle back and forth, and I looked at you as the sun was setting, and I remember thinking, "oh, fuck. I think I love him," You tell him, still seeing the moment clearly in your head after so many years.

"Do you remember the night we had to spend outside the QZ because we got caught up in a deal, and it was too dangerous to sneak in with all the soldiers?" Joel asks, and you nod. It was still early on in your relationship. At least two years before you realized you loved him. The leaves were just starting to change as fall approached, and he let you sleep with his jacket on because you were shivering so much. It was the first act of kindness he'd ever shown you. "That's when I realized I was in love with you." He finally answers, and love blossoms in your chest. He's staring at you with those big, brown eyes Charlie got from him, and you think you would do everything over again. You know you would do everything over again.

"So, you fell in love first." You tease.

"Oh, big time." 

🍓

🍓

🍓

taglist: @evyiione @nyotamalfoy @abbyhaslongshorts​

[supercalifragipopculturevomit]

Has there ever been a more beautiful man than Alain Delon in the 60s?

Currently on a marathon and except for Rocco and His Brothers which was a little too melodramatic for my taste—PTSD from growing up with telenovelas—I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a motherload of cinematic gems. When they say “they don’t make movies like these anymore” this is what they mean…

Purple Noon is the first film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Gotta suspend your disbelief that Delon would (literally) kill to be someone else during that era, but it’s still a gripping watch. From the fashion to the cinematography, a visual feast as well.

I only knew that Le Samouraï was a highly-rated classic and that it was a crime thriller… I wasn’t aware of its legacy. As the story unfolded though, it dawned on me: “Ahhh this is the film all THOSE other movies want to be.” David Fincher’s The Killer was foremost on my mind. And Delon’s Jef Costello, to this day, lives on in many characters, particularly in portrayals of antiheros.

There WAS a reason La Piscine reminded me so much of Luca Guadanino’s A Bigger Splash… it’s the source material. I’d bet good money the storyline in the second season of HBO’s White Lotus (the one with Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharpe, Meghann Fahy, and Theo James) also took inspiration from this. What a film though. Although I could anticipate where it was going, it still held me in rapt suspense. The lush cinematography, the tight script, the beautiful quartet spiraling into pyschological warfare… I loved every gnarly sexy minute of it.

Going slightly off-topic, if they ever make a biopic of this man's life, I can totally see Daniel Brühl playing him.

Hear me out: he has a similar mix of manly and boyish features (dude could probably play the 25-year-old version if he shaved off his beard); he's not French but he can speak the language well and also has that European charm and elegance going for him; he has a way of capturing a person's essence even though he doesn't resemble them much in real life (e.g. Niki Lauda in Rush and Karl Lagerfeld in Becoming Karl Lagerfeld); and he's a phenomenal and dedicated actor known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous characters, which, from what I've gathered, Delon was.

That he was a massive fan growing up probably helps, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he's seen all of his movies. This was from decades ago, but it's the most Delon-esque photo of Brühl's I could find...

[qnewsau]

Daniel Craig's Queer sex scenes leak before we even get a trailer

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/daniel-craigs-queer-sex-scenes-leak-before-we-even-get-a-trailer/

Daniel Craig's Queer sex scenes leak before we even get a trailer

The explicit gay sex scenes from Daniel Craig’s Queer have leaked online, before the highly-anticipated new movie’s trailer has even dropped.

Queer is the upcoming film from Challengers and Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadanino, based on the 1985 novel by William S Burroughs.

It stars Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey as two men who meet in Mexico City, and out heartthrob Omar Apollo makes his acting debut in a supporting role.

Queer doesn’t have a release date yet but the flick is doing the rounds on the festival circuit. The film received an 11-minute, 44-second ovation after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The hype is insane, and Queer‘s stars have been teasing the film’s gay sex scenes for months.

As more people see the film in US and Europe, naughty cinemagoers are whipping out their phones and spread the explicit scenes on Twitter X.

We’re not going to post the clips here because we don’t want to go to jail. But people are reacting hilariously to seeing a lot of Daniel Craig and Omar Apollo on their timelines.

drew starkey getting topped on my tl okayyy pic.twitter.com/dtKMmn0tvr

— n. (@ungodlymakk) October 9, 2024

almost got scared when I opened the Queer leak in public but then remembered I’m at sweat

— Kyle (@kylemiller_10) October 9, 2024

@hellokrissyj @samia_chow pic.twitter.com/SwD4QRbe5K

— Angel Rod. (@angelfishes) October 9, 2024

drew starkey bottoming scene from queer doing rounds on the tl……. pic.twitter.com/LOGSsRHdhu

— (@peachpanthress) October 10, 2024

omar apollo leaked queer scene saved to camera roll pic.twitter.com/XUMSDFJrRZ

— RooBee (@angelbabybutts) October 9, 2024

queer is gonna leak in its entirety before we have a poster…

— bunny (@chthonicrabbit) October 9, 2024

To everyone who keeps leaking clips from Queer: I genuinely hope you get sued. Like seriously

— mathis (@cinephileslut) October 9, 2024

Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey on Queer’s sex scenes

Speaking to Variety last month, actor Drew Starkey said shooting Queer, he and Daniel Craig were “game for anything.”

“We just were like, “Let’s go for it, let’s have fun,” he began.

“He was a great partner to have in that. I think him and I share that same mentality of just not giving a shit.

“[Luca] was so specific — he wanted us to be as comfortable as possible throughout that process, and we would block off where these intimate scenes would happen. We talked months in advance about what we thought it should be.

“It was also like a dance. We were trying to figure it out. But those were some of the most fun days I think we all had on set — just Daniel and I laughing.”

Daniel Craig said at the Venice Film Festival, “We just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could.

“Drew’s a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with, and we just, we kind of had a laugh. We tried to make it fun.”

Queer is set in Mexico City in the 1940s

Over in the US, prestige distributor A24 is putting out Queer, and Mubi is distributing the film in numerous countries across Europe. No mention of an Australia release just yet, as per usual.

In Queer, William Lee – a stand-in for author William S Burroughs himself – is wandering Mexico City in the 1940s, fighting drug addiction.

There, he becomes madly infatuated with Allerton, who is battling demons of his own. Allerton toys with Lee, making the gay man even more obsessed with him. The two men later go travelling together.

Director Luca Guadagnino is known for his 2017 gay romance Call Me by Your Name as well as 2024’s very horny tennis drama Challengers.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[lily-colson]

bones and all (2022, luca guadanino) / pool, samia

[give-her-my-regards]

die in your room

Tall Black Trees, Pigeon Pit | Monse Muro | After Hours, The Velvet Underground | The Recluse, Cursive | Bones and All, dir. Luca Guadanino | Kill Her Freak Out, Samia 

[non-binary-laurie-strode]

Good morning! My brain chemistry has been permanently altered by Luca Guadanino's Challengers, I fear.

[bisluthq]

Film noobs' Italian idol : Luca Guadanino 🫷🫷😣

Film Connoisseurs' Italian idol: Alice Rohrwacher 👈👈 😎

😂😂

[charlotteswebbbbb]

What's the vibe? #63

Cannes wrapped up > next interesting festivals in August are Locarno and Venice (where I think we're getting a new Luca Guadanino film).

The Euros start next week. First England game is on the 17th June and they're up against Serbia.

French Open still going strong til the 9th - a women quarter final to check out is Coco Gauff v Ons Jabeur today, right now.

Isamaya x FaceGym collab and cosmetic surgery tourism:

Isamaya Ffrench has releases a gua shua metal accessory in collaboration with FaceGym. This non invasive cosmetic "procedure" if you can call it that, is an example of 1, the rise in this traditional, culture based way of approaching health and 2, related to the want for non invasive techniques.

The former - relating to maybe "decolonial" ways of living - "how did my grandma do this and is it related to today? does it work first of all?" You could also see this strand of thought going into storytelling, unfamiliar territory for some but I think that if Hollywood is obsessed with IP that already exists, that newness is risky for them. Independent wise, the base is built, the curiosity set up in adventurous watchers who love Letterboxd, so could work in that context. (Maybe this is West specific, the rest of the world is obviously going to delve into national myths.)

One of the biggest reasons in the big Korean soft power exploding alongside the fact that the music, food and general culture is big is beauty tourism. Korean skincare exploding has people looking at their "cutting edge" treatments to improve themselves on holiday. A little botox at 1, colour matching at 2.30, great dinner at 5.

Curating and individualism:

This is a funny read - as with many things about culture I never find people go deep enough about anything. I find that when people discuss trend cycles or something they've been in it for a while but now it's just...culture. It's the pouring of 300 bottles of liquor to create the glorious cocktail. They lack - I find it uninteresting

"are we killing culture?" isn't even a real idea or question. Culture will shift, mutate, regroup. I even think because of almost a year of activism, some tactics will be borrowed - it might be of the same speed/faster/underground or aggressively IRL because that's where you find

At the end of the piece, there's this link which was attached to the phrase "find our way back to reality".

IDK - even this doesn't move me - it's very stiff in terms of what to do. Like what do you enjoy? What's your perspective on things? There's consumption but people like enjoyment....which is why they consume? The most interesting writings or stuff is like maybe visiting Cafe Oto. You can observe from outside, hear the muffled sounds, enjoy a chat with a friend, go inside, experience something weird, different, go back out, write down observations, go back in and maybe read a little on stage to the audience and see how they feel about it.

I think now we've gotten near to peak curation, a lot of hidden gems are found and easily accessed - which is great for people, sometimes not great for creators, or businesses that are suddenly overwhelmed unnecessarily.

from above: "Structurally, the Internet is not getting better anytime soon; I have not hidden my pessimism about its future. But human creativity persists, even in hostile conditions. Figures like Gee, Reilly, and Shuherk make me hopeful that fun, interesting niches of activity can still survive online. There’s another word that we might apply to such people: “connoisseurs,” in the art-historical sense of passionate observers who shape a discipline through their judgments. We’ve always had connoisseurs, from the radio d.j. to the bookstore clerk, subtly but vitally informing the culture that the rest of us choose to consume. As Shuherk put it, “The person in the nineties working at Blockbuster—we’re the same person.”

I do think that the backlash to a lot of this in the next few years (or months) is just extreme gatekeeping especially for spaces for more marginalised people. Everyone wants to go to the cool thing but tourism decreases the legitimacy.

We're also in extreme tough economic times - see Black Keys, J-Lo cancelling US tour dates, Melt Festival in Germany stopping after 27 years due to changing festival landscape, (Maybe even Jamie XX doing a 10 night residency at Venue MOT). These examples to say anything smaller than the super established runs at a risk. It's hard to create culture when you can't pay rent but also hard to keep going if your audience extract the uniqueness from your creation.

from above: "An exasperated Dominic Cook, a former director at the Royal Court theatre, last month went so far as to call for renationalising the arts. His point, provocatively framed, was that the current system is broken. The model that worked when he started out in the late 1980s — when generous state funding and box office receipts combined to more or less cover costs — now requires hefty supplemental doses of private funding. "

We deeply need funding bodies to keep culture flowing - whether some new Medicis want to step in or "ethical" funding bodies or the government, we'll be happy nonetheless.

I mean this also doesn't mean that cool things aren't happening in industries such as film. For example something like not/nowhere or other cinemas are giving people the chance to learn new skills and showcase work.

4 the dating data heads:

androgyny dressing:

[glenngaylord]

Three On A Match - Film Review: Challengers ★★★★1/2

Films and movies often operate on different planes of existence. Some films feel like homework. Some take you to distant lands and shine a light on different cultures. Some intimately expose the human condition. But movies? Well, my favorite kind of movies thrive on pure adrenaline, action and sexual excitement. Who doesn’t love looking at beautifully lit, sun-dappled faces in a 24 frames per second dreamscape? I think of Against All Odds, for example, with Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward never looking sexier. Terrible film, but a great movie. Same goes for Showgirls or Valley Of The Dolls. On the flip side, My Dinner With Andre could be considered a terrible movie but a great film.

Enter Challengers, the latest from Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) and first-time screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes to shift the paradigm by being both a great film and a great movie. One could easily look at it as a small character study or a traditional sports drama, but you also wouldn’t be wrong if you saw it as a supremely thrilling, sexually charged study in pure star magnetism.

Set in 2019 in the world of tennis, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Donaldson, a pro turned coach whose husband Art (Mike Faist from West Side Story) faces off against Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor from The Crown) as the story begins. The filmmakers show their audacity instantly by introducing footage of this match even before the MGM logo appears. Utilizing frequent flashbacks at finely calibrated moments, we learn how the trio came to know each other. Each revelation raises the stakes and deepens our understanding of the dynamics at play. I won’t get into plot details further as it would spoil the deliciousness in how each bit of information tells us more and more about the characters.

Here we have a film less about the specifics of a tennis match, however gloriously the sport gets framed by Guadagnino’s frequent collaborator, Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, and more about the sheer delight of sexual chemistry and how assertiveness enhances it. Yes, those matches get dutch angles, swooping drone shots and tennis balls whooshing right into the lens, but that’s nothing compared to the confidence Zendaya brings to her character. I’d call this a star-making performance, but who are we kidding? Zendaya is already a star, with Euphoria proving her to be a world class actor. Here, however, she crackles with a heretofore unseen screen idol energy, blazing through scene after scene.

Although essentially a love triangle at its core, it’s anything but equilateral. The way Zendaya dominates the two men proves that. With Art as the sensitive, shy type and Patrick the outgoing bad boy, they’re both putty in Tashi’s hands. In one standout scene, she sits back and watches them grow closer. The expression on her face along with the high angle makes the moment indelible. We experience the relationships in all their permutations, pairs and triples, giving us a full picture of the ever-deepening connections, culminating in an all-timer ending that’s thrilling, hilarious, satisfying yet ambiguous. One could easily think of this as a gay film or interpret it as straight or perhaps bisexual. Regardless, most people will need a shower afterward.

O’Connor and Feist excel here with an explosive chemistry of their own, whether nimbly playing teenagers or grown men. When one thinks of formative years, you’ll see it playing out on their open faces and youthful giggles. In a film which puts arousal front and center, the two men can’t contain it, whereas Zendaya’s Tashi delights in causing and/or instigating it. Guadanino makes sure the audience is in on the fun with copious nudity, crotch shots, butt shots and Zendaya wowing us in fashion designer J.W. Anderson’s super seductive outfits. No matter your sexual orientation, you’re gonna walk out of this film feeling mentally stimulated as well as all kinds of hot and bothered.

This film click-click-clicks with energy and proudly wears its bonkers tone on its sleeve. With three great performances, crisp writing and direction, credit also goes to Editor Marco Costa, who ensures we don’t experience a boring second while masterfully jumping from one timeline to the other. Also, it’s impossible to watch Challengers without noticing the fantastic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This propulsive, synth-heavy music comes in frequently, sometimes competing with dialogue, but always to emphasize the carnality. It makes the movie pop. I dubbed one recurring cue the “I Feel Love (The Horny Boner Edition) ft. Giorgio Moroder” and couldn’t stop cackling every time it made an appearance. This could have easily veered off into high camp were it not for its adult themes and vivid acting.

At times the film reminded me of Personal Best, the great screenwriter Robert Towne’s 1982 directorial debut. Both share a love of faces and bodies and an otherworldly way of presenting them. But, in truth, I’ve never seen a film quite like Challengers, existing somewhere in between a movie and a film. It’s one of a kind, nutty, exciting, and easily one of the best of 2024.