Every Single Important Detail of the ‘Challengers’ Three-Way Kiss

Apparently, it’s not encouraged to shout, “All right boys, pucker up!” at a movie theater screen during a packed showing of one of the most anticipated films of the year. God forbid anyone has a little bit of fun. You’re telling me that no one else brought tubes of Blistex to throw at the screen during Challengers? What’s next, I can’t make loud smooching sounds when Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist all gather in a hotel room, even when I’ve seen the movie’s trailer 50 times and I know exactly what’s about to happen? No, you grow up!

Just kidding, I would rather die than be caught dead disrupting a theater. Yet, Challengers has a way of thwarting even our most steadfast moral tenets, prompting audiences to act on impulse. My screening had plenty of gasping, hooting, and cheering as all three characters involved in a tennis-based love triangle wormed their way through each others’ lives. There is so much seduction and subterfuge packed into the film that I found myself holding my breath as often as I did twirling my hair around my finger like a lovestruck schoolgirl with a secret crush. But part of Challengers’ brilliance is that it lets no crush go secret for too long, and it’s impossible to walk away from the movie without feeling like you just got a glimpse of something far more depraved than you were anticipating—in the best possible way. All this immorality is set into motion quickly and carefully, and it’s one steaming hot three-way kiss between the movie’s stars that triggers it.

In case you got clocked in the noggin with a fuzzy green ball and missed the memo, Challengers stars Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O’Connor as a triad of young tennis prodigies, whose expertise is outweighed only by their mutual horniness. This results in some calculating betrayal over the years, as the three of them navigate the ups and downs of their personal and professional lives with about as much care as one would expect from ruthless athletes. There’s plenty of viciousness on and off the court, but the scenes of physical intimacy are just as intense. But don’t be fooled: Challengers isn’t your average two-bit, soft porn Netflix movie. There are few actual sex scenes in the film. In Challengers, the sweaty, grunting tennis matches are the real sex, and glimpses of carnal activity are mere foreplay for what happens in these sequences. And, just like in real life, foreplay sets the tone for what comes next.

There’s no better example of this cinematic stimulation than that highly anticipated kiss scene between O’Connor and Faist’s characters, Patrick and Art. Is it a little gauche to be awaiting a gay kiss, perhaps even reductive? I suppose. But do I hold myself as a paradigm of film criticism, exempt from being stirred by two actors making out? Not on your life! I consider it my duty as a critic to at least attempt to feel whatever a director is trying to convey, and I don’t think it’s some big secret that Challengers director Luca Guadagnino wants audiences to feel the sexual tension that vibrates between this trio. Don’t let anyone shame you for being turned on by a movie. You’re only human, and even the most steely viewer couldn’t resist what occurs in this scene.

The kiss happens when Art and Patrick invite Zendaya’s character, Tashi, to their hotel room after the boys meet Tashi at an event for the 2006 Junior US Open. (The period is important to mention here because Art and Patrick are dressed in the mid-aughts’ finest straight guy couture: polo shirts and cargo shorts—hubba hubba.) Tashi knows well that she’s not meeting the pair just to talk shop about tennis, but she invites the possibility of something more malevolent when she lobs Patrick and Art an offer. The two boys are set to play each other in a match in the morning. They had originally planned to throw it, letting one of them win in an inconsequential tournament. Instead, Tashi proposes that whoever wins the match can sleep with her.

As if that weren’t enticing enough, Tashi asks the boys to sit next to her on one of the hotel room beds. Art and Patrick scramble to flank her sides, where she takes turns kissing both of them. Slowly, the three of them come in for a three-way kiss, which is hot enough as it is, before Tashi leans back and lets the guys continue on their own. Art and Patrick have their eyes closed, making out with one another, while Tashi watches them with a devious Cheshire-cat smile sprawled across her formerly angelic face.

This might seem gratuitous to some, but it means so much within Challengers’ larger thematic framework. There is no obnoxious realization during this kiss, where Art and Patrick open their eyes and act disgusted by having kissed each other. Although that would be perfectly fitting for the “no homo” era of 2006, writer Justin Kuritzkes’ screenplay is far more intelligent than that. This moment doesn’t have to be played for a joke, because it isn’t one. Art and Patrick’s kiss helps solidify the intensity of their lifelong friendship, as well as their rampant desire for Zendaya’s character, Tashi. By making out with one another, they’re giving into a passionate, unspoken connection, both between the two male friends and their new acquaintance Tashi, who has quickly proven herself a contender who plays as fiercely as Patrick and Art do. This kiss ignites a rivalry between them, one that they could never conceive until they met Tashi. For her, they’ll do anything, including ruining their relationship. Tashi is the ultimate prize, and sex is the game that they’re playing to win her.

The three-way kiss scene is just one of many sexy sequences in Challengers, which mines just as much lustful tension from Art and Patrick’s dynamic as it does the Art-Tashi-Patrick love triangle. Characters talk inches from each other’s faces, grab each other’s thighs, and flaunt their egos like big swinging tennis rackets between their legs. Hell, the scene where Patrick offers Art a bite of his churro, and Art, keeping his eyes locked on his best friend, takes a big bite of the phallic pastry, might even outdo the big kiss scene. I was chewing my regular-sized drink straw like a teething baby at the sight of two bros—connected by their love of the game and their love of the girl—sharing a little cinnamon sugar action. Sometimes a completely innocuous act can look raunchy from the right vantage point.

Prurient scenes like these keep Challengers gripping until the literal last second. The film is an intoxicating blend of sports and sex, one that understands that performing well in either matter requires as much intelligence as it does physical strain. A lesser movie would use this overlap as permission to titillate viewers without any underlying significance. But, much like Tashi, Challengers is far too clever to reveal all of its goods upfront.