Challengers is filled with details like that, people and places that may not matter to the drama but are integral to dropping us into a world that feels authentic and joyful. Joyful because Guadagnino’s delight in them is contagious; you can feel his affection for every cheap hotel and country club tennis court and all of the unimportant people whose lives are built around them. There are a lot of wonderful, trashy American locations in this movie and every one of them Guadagnino films as if it were a beautiful villa somewhere in Northern Italy.

These movies could exist without the guys who directed them…but they would be shells of what they are now. Demme and Guadagnino bring their love for character, for actors, for bodies, for genre, for the camera, for music, for landscape, for Applebee’s, and suddenly what could have been just very good becomes truly great.