Challengers sets a new bar for sexy sports movies—but how gay is it?

Welcome to How Gay Is It? Out’s new review series where, using our state-of-the-art Eggplant Rating System, we determine just how queer some of pop culture's buzziest films and tv shows are! (Editor’s note: this review contains mild spoilers for Challengers.)

What is love between two men? Is it friendship? Is it a competition? Is it brotherhood? Is it sex?

Those are all questions Challengers seeks to answer, and it does so with expertise and artistic triumph!

From the moment the film begins, Challengers is a fast-paced back and forth following two best friends and professional tennis players, Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist), competing both on the court and over the same woman.

Patrick and Art have been best friends, almost brothers, since they were bunkmates at a prestigious tennis academy together as children, and by the time they’re college-age and on the verge of going pro, they are inseparable.

That is, until tennis prodigy (and certified hot girl) Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) shows up and ignites a bomb in their relationship with each other, and with her.

While Zendaya is the big name and face of the film, she’s more of a supporting role than leading. Her character is a force of nature, a Goddess of Tennis and Love, whose whims and movements affect everything around her, especially the two leading men.

It’s a fitting role, as “force of nature” is exactly how I would describe Zendaya and her performance. She is truly incredible. Much like her character in the film, she’s on another level in every way. She’s beautiful, talented, magnetic, brilliant, and unforgettable.

When her character, Tashi, is injured during college and has to retire from playing tennis, she finds a new way to enjoy her sport: she sets the two men going after her against each other.

For the rest of the movie, she’s lining up set pieces, serving up shots, and making calculated moves that push the two men to be their best selves on the court and in bed.

In the end, Challengers is a love story between its two male leads, with the entire runtime showing a will-they-won’t-they, back-and-forth between them, not unlike a tennis match.

It’s a slow-burning fuse and these two men keep on fanning the flame that Tashi ignited. This is especially true of Patrick, who seems to be more aware of his feelings for Art than Art does.

The narrative alternates between showing times when Tashi was with Mike and times when she was with Patrick, jumping forward and back through time to emphasize just how much of a tennis match this relationship is.

It’s all bolstered by the present-day narrative of the movie, which takes place at a challengers event, where a washed up Patrick faces off against a recently-injured Art looking to recover and secure his legacy as a tennis great.

Faist and O’Connor are electric, imbuing the film with so much homoerotic tension you could think you’re watching the first half of a porno.

Director Luca Guadagnino is a genius at laying it on just thick enough, as the movie absolutely drips with sexual tension between all three leads, never leaving out the tension between the two boys.

When we meet the two best friends, they’re chowing down hungrily on hot dogs, the first of several phallic foods they eat together. Later, Patrick confesses to Tashi that he taught Art how to masturbate, and then later when he confronts Art in a sauna, he tells him, “I miss playing with you.”

It’s almost a greco-roman celebration of the male body, with lingering shots on shirtless men, muscles, locker rooms and saunas.

Challengers is as gay as it gets — and as great as it gets! For that, from us it gets five out of five stars, and more importantly, five out of five eggplants!

Challengers opens in theaters on April 26. Watch the trailer below.