Talk about a snack-rich diet.
If you were lucky enough to catch Challengers in its opening weekend, then perhaps you also left the theater Googling “churros near me” or “cigarettes what brand josh oconnor patrick zweig.” Part of the greater horny appeal of Challengers — beyond its athletic serving and groaning — is the ways in which the characters engage with food as mirrors for their own desires. This is a calorie-dense picture, straddling the line between “so healthy it sucks” and “so bad it’s good.” Below is a list of the film’s menu, so to speak, ranked from the least to most horny.
Art’s electrolyte goo
Anyone who has had the unfortunate desire to run a half-marathon or engage in any kind of extracurricular physical activity is well versed in the neon-colored electrolyte goo with candylike flavors (lemon lime, strawberry kiwi, and cola, for instance) that replenish the body’s lack of hydration. These things are necessary, sure, but they are also disgusting. During the final Phil’s Tire Town Challenger match, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) takes a breather between sets and begrudgingly sucks down one of these packets. It doesn’t look any more appealing to us than it does to him.
Art’s protein smoothie
Poor Art! Getting a nutritionist really seems like the worst thing that could happen to a guy who is really rich and married to Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and lives in hotels. Whatever powders, greens, and supplements get blended into his breakfast prior to his match — especially compared to his daughter’s delish and carb-heavy breakfast — feel uninspired, undelicious, and useless in the face of the game he plays. Not unlike their later relationship, Art laps up whatever Tashi’s willing to dole out.
Stanford dining-hall food
If you think trying to eat healthy with a professional nutritionist guiding your diet sucks, imagine doing that with college dining-hall food. A year and change into Tashi’s relationship with Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), she joins Art for a meal in the Stanford dining room. Though neither of their meals (fibrous, low-fat, with at least five heads of broccoli between them) look especially appealing, Art uses this shared meal to plant seeds of distrust between Tashi and Patrick, inserting his way into their then-monogamous relationship. While the food looked plenty unappetizing, Art’s dirty tricks elevate the stakes between himself and Tashi, proving that eating your vegetables doesn’t always have to be boring.
Dunkin’ bagel sandwich
When we meet Patrick in the present timeline of Challengers, he’s really down on his luck: debit card declined at a shitty motel, sleeping in his car, dirty and smelly and possibly hotter than ever. He arrives to Phil’s Tire Town Challenger several hours before check-in by sleeping in the parking lot, and during his registration, he eyes what might be the best-looking Dunkin’ breakfast sandwich of all time made with a bagel that has no signs of being squished into a bag. I don’t know that a bagel that robust exists in the history of bread, but rather than think of the moment as an indulgent bit of Dunkin’ spon, consider the sandwich as an object of desire: warm, robust, melty. Patrick looks at that sandwich the way he looks at Art, desperate and needing. It’s a mercy that the organizer lets him have a bite.
Hot dogs
After Art and Patrick’s winning doubles match, when the film is rosy and beautiful and “Tashi Duncan homewrecker” feels one million miles away, the two wend their way through the U.S. Junior Open, eating concessions-stand hot dogs, sharing bites with each other as they walk and talk. Though hot dogs are kind of the original horny food, we don’t see too much of the actual eating, because the film is too intent to deliver necessary exposition. Maybe in the director’s cut, we can get more of a footlong sequence here.
Applebee’s cake
Long after Tashi and Art and Patrick have gone their separate ways, the former two reconnect at a tournament where Tashi is coaching one of the women’s players. The two abscond to an Applebee’s to talk tennis, between them something the restaurant refers to as a “Triple Chocolate Meltdown.” Their conversation is full of sweet, gentle flirting, Art too fearful to admit his true feelings. (Tashi straightforwardly asks Art if he’s still in love with her, to which he answers, “Who wouldn’t be?”) The dessert between them goes half-touched, suggesting a moment of comfort and care between them. We tend not to think of Applebee’s as providing the sexiest food, but in this context, it’s definitely winning the fast-casual wars.
Patrick’s banana
As Art slurps down electrolyte goo, Patrick opts for the undeniably phallic banana, biting and chewing and smirking at his rival. On one hand, Patrick’s snack choice is reflective of his character’s circumstances: He has no trainer, no coach, and no nutritionist. He has a (presumably free) snack off a foldable table. And yet, on the fuel of a single banana, he has Art sweating and nervous, losing the game. If fan-cam oversaturation is to be believed, this is one of the craziest things to happen in the history of film.
Cigarettes
Are cigarettes a food? They are in the movie Challengers. Patrick’s desire to smoke a cigarette away from the party that he, Art, and Tashi all first meet as teenagers is the dramatic impetus for all that unfolds between these three, proving that the greatest upside to smoking is being able to encourage a hot person to step away from a party with you. The cigarettes appear later in the film when Patrick tries to steal Tashi away as his coach. Her outrage leads her to smack it out of his mouth, and it’s only in the final seconds of the scene — blurred in the background — that we see Patrick go pick up the half-smoked cigarette up off the asphalt. Patrick might need Art and Tashi (together, separate, whatever), but he really needs that cigarette, and so do audience members walking out of the film.
Art’s gum
Twice in the film, we see Art spit gum into the hand of another character. We see this for the first time in the film’s present, when he dutifully spits gum into Tashi’s hand ahead of a match. Later in the film, but earlier in the story’s chronology, we see Art spit his gum into Patrick’s hand, this time with a playful laugh. The two nearly break — is it a near-blooper? A moment of tension bursting through the surface? There’s a comfort and intimacy that Art doesn’t have with Tashi later on; maybe she’s never been quite as keen to receive his spit, but the way the boys beam at each other during this moment gives the audience plenty to chew on.
Churros
In the scene that is going to spur approximately one thousand fan fictions, Art and Patrick reunite at Stanford and enjoy a quick churro snack for no other reason than it’s also a phallic food available to the production designer of Challengers. They sit in the Stanford cafeteria, talking and horking down these snacks, when Art not-so-slyly reveals he’s made a type of play toward Tashi. Up until that point, the boys are sitting close, faces inches away from each other, sugar adhered to their faces. “I kept the shot long because I felt that we had to stay with them to learn the grammar of their behavior, and their behavior together,” director Luca Guadagnino explained in a breakdown of the scene. Well, it’s clear that the grammar of their behavior is “they want to kiss.” The scene only escalates from there. “When the sugar goes on the cheek of Patrick, Art takes it off with his hand in a very nice gesture of kindness — and very intimate, I would say,” Guadagnino added. The moment concludes with the boys sharing a bite from the same churro, and the people still on Tumblr were never the same again.
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