Is the weather in the UK finally getting warmer or have we all just got an extreme case of Challengers fever?
After being pushed back seven months from September 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, excitement for Luca Guadagnino’s romantic sports drama Challengers was through the roof. From the thumping teaser trailers set to Rihanna’s ‘S&M’ and Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’, to the glamorous press tour which saw some of Zendaya’s most memorable outfits yet, the waiting became unbearable. So, on opening night I descended on my local cinema, buzzing from excitement in my chair.
The film centres around the relationships between three tennis players: Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former prodigy who becomes a coach after a fateful injury; Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), Tashi’s tennis champion husband whom she coaches; and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), a washed-up player who is Art’s former doubles partner and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.
Upon its release a mere 10 days ago, there have been articles and think-pieces galore, including how tennis is the sexiest sport of all time and a ranking of the horniest foods appearing in the film. With that being said, there’s still new articles coming out daily about a different aspect of the film, so I thought I’d add to the growing pile.
What makes Challengers such an invigorating and clever film is that the whole plot is a metaphorical game of tennis. The narrative is a ball, jumping back and forth between three storylines full of emotional conflict. This conflict is created by our players – Tashi, Art and Patrick. We see them constantly playing against each other in an attempt to ‘win.’ These include Art and Patrick fighting for Tashi’s number, Tashi and Patrick fighting about who is more qualified to give out tennis advice, or Tashi and Art’s silent battle on when (or if ever) is the right time to quit.
These conflicts act as games within a set of tennis. The film’s acts are the tennis sets, where Patrick wins the first act as he wins Tashi’s number; Art wins the second act as he breaks up Tashi and Patrick and ends up marrying her; and Tashi wins the third, but we’ll get onto that later.
Throughout the film, our attention is constantly drawn back to the match happening on its cinematic centre court. In the present timeline, Art and Patrick are playing in the final of a ‘challenger’ (a lower-level tennis tournament). Tashi sits at the halfway line where the net is, right in the middle of the two players. This deliberate, on-the-nose blocking represents how Tashi became detrimental to Art and Patrick’s relationship, both as players and as friends.
There are only two occasions throughout the entire film where there is complete harmony between the three players. The first is the infamous hotel room scene, where college-aged Art and Patrick attempt to win Tashi’s affections. She ends ups kissing both of them individually, before they all engage in a three-way kiss, then she pulls away and watches the two boys making out. Over the dazzling soundtrack of Blood Orange’s ‘Uncle ACE’ (a 2013 song inserted into a scene set in 2006), this scene encapsulates Tashi’s sentiment that ‘tennis is a relationship.’
The second occasion of harmony is the ending. After it is revealed that Art wants to retire from tennis and Tashi has an affair with Patrick, we are once again thrust back into the final ‘challenger’ match, with only the decisive match point to go. In a nail-biting scene, Patrick reveals to Art through a secret signal used earlier in the film that he had slept with Tashi. This gives Art the motivation to step his game up, culminating in him nearly launching himself over the net in an attempt to win the point. As he comes down from flight, Patrick catches him in his arms and they laugh together, just as they did when they used to play together.
There, in the audience, is Tashi. She rises to her feet and yells in delight. Throughout the film, her main motivation to not to seduce one of the boys, but to watch ‘some good fucking tennis.’ That’s why she pit the two boys against each other to win her number in the first place, to motivate them to give her a show like they did in the hotel room. The ending mirrors those moments, giving Tashi what she wants, crowning her the winner of the third act.
The film cuts to black after Tashi’s scream, so it is never revealed who the winner of the challenger is. But this doesn’t matter, as the metaphorical tennis match is over. All three players have ended their back-and-forth battles and have (probably) headed back to the hotel room.
All in all, I found Challengers to be just as exciting as a Wimbledon final. There are plenty more articles I could write about it, but I mainly wanted to spotlight just how clever the screenplay by Justin Kurtizkes and the editing by Marco Costa really is. It’s accessible to an audience who have no clue about tennis, but also enticing for this enamoured sports fan (or rather armchair athlete).
See it with someone who will gasp at the same parts as you. Or take someone who’s going in blind and watch them squirm in their chair as it all unfolds. Either one is a rewarding experience.
Five stars from me, I told ya.