CHALLENGERS

 How sexy you find tennis probably depends very much on how sexy you find the players; the men's sweaty, muscular bodies when the shirts come off; the women racing around the court in their short skirts. The whole idea is more like something out of the comic 'Viz' than the real thing and it's this element that Luca Guadagnino wants us to keep in the forefront of our minds when watching "Challengers".

Guadagnino's latest is as much about the sex as it is about the tennis and very enjoyable it is, too. Never one to shy away from laying things on a tad thickly he goes all out here in a steamy tale of sexual as well as professional rivalry. Tashi, (Zendaya), is the up-and-coming potential champion while Patrick, (Josh O'Connor), and Art, (Mike Faist), are the young turks and boyhood friends who both spy her at the same time, both wanting her as much perhaps as they may even want each other.

At the centre of the film is a long tennis match between the two men, one of whom is now Tashi's ex-lover and the other, her husband but the action is broken up by flashbacks telling us how all three have reached this point in their lives. It's a technique that works surprisingly well both in building up a picture of the protagonists, (the three leads are superb), as well as naturally building up suspense, at least until the climax which isn't so much treated as a tennis match as a battle between two young gods on the slopes of Mount Olympus with an ending bordering on parody. Still, this is top-notch multiplex fare, brilliantly shot, edited and acted and further proof that Guadagnino is up there with the best of them.