These boys sure do love Zendaya, but more than they love Zendaya, they love each other. And really, more than they love each other, they love tennis. The film oozes sexuality between each point of the central love triangle, yet it’s not about characters actually having sex with each other. Tennis is their sex. It is through tennis that they come together, and only through tennis that they truly understand each other. This is how the story itself is structured—we cut between the match going on in the present and the events of the past. In so doing we come to understand what this match means to each challenger, and it is through the match specifically that character arcs come to fruition. Tennis isn’t a game but a relationship, says Zendaya’s character, in which for a brief moment you can truly understand the person across the court. The film shows this to be true, as its climax reaches heights of ecstasy possible—for these racquet freaks at least—only in tennis.
All of the advertising focuses on the sexual tension with Zendaya’s character (understandable given her star power), and on the surface that is true in the film as well. The men compete for her affection, just as they compete over everything. But the core of the story is about the relationship between these two men. It is in fact quite male-focused in its perspective in general (as may be expected for director Luca Guadagnino). Zendaya’s character isn’t given nearly the same eroticization as the men are, and the way the men are eroticized feels particularly masculine. Men’s bodies are sexualized here in ways that they often aren’t in mainstream cinema, but that’s not because this is the “female gaze,” this is not a fantasy for women. This is the opposite: about men, for men. Sweat pours off the men’s extremities in prolonged slow motion, dousing the camera as they push themselves to their limit. They play with each other, they compete with each other, and are comfortable with each other’s bodies. The men love each other, but they do so in a uniquely masculine way. It’s more Brokeback Mountain than Twilight.
Well-written, beautiful visuals, this one walloped me with how good it was. 40-love, for me.