Every once in a while—in spite of the inferno of lunacy, cruelty, and soul-crushing stress flaming all around—the world resembles one that I still want to live in, that reflects my deepest values and belief in a society that is fundamentally good.
By some soul-affirming miracle that’s happening right now: People everywhere can’t wait to see Zendaya and two cute boys kiss. This is my America.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve observed as much anticipation for a movie as I’ve seen these last few weeks for Challengers. The new film features Zendaya as a tennis superstar at the center of an erotically charged rivalry-turned-love triangle with her husband, Art (Mike Faist), and her former lover—and his former best friend—Patrick (Josh O’Connor).
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, who steamed up screens previously with Call Me By Your Name and A Bigger Splash, Challengers has been steadily accruing buzz with months of titillating ads and trailers, scores of advanced screenings that produced ecstatic social media reaction, and a dizzying press tour spotlighting its stars’ charm and chemistry—not to mention Zendaya’s jaw-dropping fashion looks.
Originally planned for a September 2023 release during the prime of award season, the film was pushed back seven months because the Hollywood strikes prevented the actors from doing press. Putting out the film anyway, as we’ve now learned, would have robbed us of one of the most delightful interview onslaughts from a cast in recent memory. Plus, Challengers was originally set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival. As Variety wrote, “If Zendaya can’t walk the carpet at the Venice Film Festival… then what’s the point?” A more indisputable question has never been asked.
The result, quite appropriate given the nature of a film, has been seven months of foreplay.
The promise of Zendaya in a sweaty, sexy movie with two male co-stars—each of whom has charged up the ranking of The Internet’s Favorite Boyfriends—was tantalizing on its own. But then came each new interview, review, and report about Challengers’ most talked-about scene: the three-way kiss that concludes with O’Connor and Faist making out with each other. Anecdotally, my interminably online self could sense people on social media practically throbbing with anticipation for the film’s release this weekend.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that this kind of pre-release enthusiasm for a film is extremely rare. I’m not saying that Challengers is going to do the box-office numbers of a Barbie or an Oppenheimer; it’s a specialty release on a far smaller scale than those blockbusters. But there’s been a palpable thrill surrounding the buildup that has managed to remain almost relentlessly positive—made all the more impressive by how atypically long this march to the cinema has been.
This Challengers affection runs counter to how the internet typically treats everything. The list in this famous quote has expanded in the modern media age: The only things certain in life are death, taxes, turning on the news will horrify you, needing a nap, and that there will always be people lurking to ensure that you don’t enjoy anything fun for too long.
As powerful as fans are on the internet, they are helpless to the terrorizing ways of cynics and buzzkills, the two entities that control the world. (The “world” in 2024, of course, being “the discourse.”) If something seems fun, and people are outwardly excited for it, someone beams a Bat Signal. Then, they arrive heavily armed with an artillery of “Well, actually…,” “This is problematic…,” “It is actually bad because…,” and detailed arguments as to why you are a loser for liking the project in question.
I’ve been struck by (again, anecdotally) how this backlash has largely not surfaced with Challengers, at least not on the scale I’m used to in pop culture. Not only have people been giddy at the opportunity to finally screen the movie, but those who have been able to see it in advance have been rapturous, stoking the excitement rather than extinguishing it. (I’m not naive: There is indeed a section of the internet where people are primed to hate Challengers, and it shouldn’t be shocking that it’s the extremist bubble where straight white men live.)
The Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s Coleman Spilde wrote in his review that “heat swells, tensions flare, and skin is slick with perspiration, but fatigue never once sets in,” a sentiment that was echoed in the glowing reactions lighting up social media:
I keep waiting for the other (tennis) shoe to drop. The serve to fault. Break point to be lost. But, implausibly, the closer Challengers has gotten to this weekend’s release, there have only been more reasons to be unapologetically stoked for the movie. There have been more interviews with Zendaya, O’Connor, and Feist that are impossible not to grin ear-to-ear to while reading. More euphoric reactions from early screenings. And then, the game-set-match point, at least for me, is this beautiful, ebullient quote from Guadagnino in reaction to all the chatter that the film’s already iconic threeway kiss scene was going to generate.
“It’s beautiful to kiss people!” he told Variety. “That’s what I want to say. People, kiss! Do not make war.”
Do not be surprised if, by Monday morning, I’ve had that quote stitched onto a throw pillow, painted onto a billboard, papered in flyers all over town, and tattooed across my body. Why are we all so stressed? Why is there so much hate? Why am I still sitting bleary-eyed at my laptop typing this damned newsletter? Let’s all go kiss! (And then go see Challengers…and then kiss again.) I’ll meet you outside.
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