Review: "Challengers" throbs with desire
Friday, April 26, 2024 at 9:00AM 
American mainstream cinema has rarely felt as sexless as it does today. Even in the period between the 1934 implementation of the Hays Code and its demise, screens felt roused with desire. In some ways, the prohibition of overt sexuality supercharged movies with erotic potential, like a pot of boiling water that heats up faster once you put a lid on it. But nowadays, such qualities feel like artifacts of a bygone era. That's not to say movies suddenly lack objects of desire. Instead, as RS Benedict put it in his essay on superhero films, "everyone is beautiful and no one is horny." But here comes Luca Guadagnino to the rescue, that lustful Italian whose films beckon a return to hedonistic cinema even when produced within Hollywood. Challengers is a prime example of that…