Screw the Threesome: Churros Star in the Sexiest ‘Challengers’ Scene
For a movie with no actual sex scenes, Challengers is very hot. Well, the more accurate word here is “horny”—because its hottest moments are the ones whose subtext is so glaring, it’s shocking that the characters don’t pounce on each other then and there. And one scene in particular should send director Luca Guadagnino straight to horny jail, for heavily implying the sex we wish the characters were just straight-up having instead. It involves—as is this food-lusting filmmaker’s wont—a churro.
Yes, the man who brought you “Timothée Chalamet sticks his dick in a peach” and “Timothée Chalamet makes eating a human being look really sexy” has added a new moment of edible eroticism to his oeuvre. Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor have entered the pantheon of sensual cinema with their technically chaste, but unbelievably sensual shared churro chomp—an action so visceral with a food so phallic, I have to imagine it will inspire many porn parodies to come.
Challengers is already slathered in metaphors: Tashi (Zendaya) equates sex with success on the tennis court, a passion driven by her aborted career in the sport. Unable to dominate opponents as she once did—an injury in college means she can no longer play professionally— she projects her lust for the sport upon her husband Art (Faist) and ex-boyfriend/Art’s ex-best friend Patrick (O’Connor). This love triangle was born when Tashi’s irrepressible allure (and sex drive) attracted both Art and Patrick to her as teens. As Tashi’s desires volley between Patrick and Art—the latter of whom becomes a Roger Federer-style pro, while the former fades into obscurity—it causes a years-long rift in the boys’ friendship. That rift rips wide open once more when they face off at a small-scale qualifier match that, thanks to Tashi, suddenly becomes the game of their lives.