Challengers Review– Serving Sweat, Sex & Scandal
SPOILERS AHEAD
Multi-hyphenate actor, singer, and model Zendaya has been in the spotlight since her early teenage years in the Disney show, Shake It Up. Since then, she’s remained on Hollywood’s radar, starring in major hits including The Greatest Showman, Euphoria, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Malcolm & Marie, the Dune series - and now, the Emmy Award-winning actress brings a new story to life in her first leading-lady role as Tashi Duncan in Challengers.
Challengers is a time-bending, erotic thriller depicting the relationship between three tennis stars — Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). Patrick and Art, two best friends since middle school, are both rising tennis stars during their senior year of high school. At the US Open, the pair meet Tashi and are unreservedly captivated by her beauty and prowess. Upon their initial meeting, it is clear that Tashi is amused by this awe, and leverages the lust-induced power dynamic between the three to explore how “tennis is more than a game -- it is a relationship.” It could be argued that the trio’s deepest needs represent the major components of tennis. Desire is served back and forth between jealousy and lust; fame is served back and forth between the thin lines of luck and skill. Sex is served between Tashi, Patrick, and Art. At each defining moment through the film, they take turns becoming the tennis ball - the very thing exploding with pressure that can only move or act on another’s volition, not their own. Interestingly, the tennis ball played another role, too. The point-of-view approach to shooting tennis matches allowed the audience to be more than people sitting on the sidelines of a match; they were incorporated into the movie as the ball themselves.
The film is no-doubt a sexy one, with intimate shots of three-way foreplay, filled with a thick tension between Tashi, Art and Patrick. However, I’d argue that Art and Patrick’s chemistry with each other is the strongest out of the three. Although the two both pursued Tashi, and eventually Art married Tashi, they chased what she represented more than her physical likeness. To Art, Tashi represented validation. To Patrick, acquiring Tashi was an extension of his ego. But the men’s long-standing relationship from boyhood to manhood, and their connection to tennis, symbolized a great love affair. Luca Guadagnino, director of the film, does not shy away from this theme. He placed the two in sexually allusive shots, often, similar to how Nella Larsen alludes to the LGBTQ+ themes in the 1920’s novel, Passing. Art and Patrick frequently eat phallic-shaped food together, are dripped in a seductive sweat from an intense match, or engage in nude locker room banter-- symbols for the apparent. Even at one of the most dramatic points in the film, Patrick holds up a banana to Art and offers a bite.
Their relationship is not to dim Tashi’s role in the men's lives. Infamously, the trailer quotes her saying “I’m taking such good care of my little white boys,” and she did, according to their individual needs of approval and self-importance. After a career-ending injury, Tashi is no longer able to compete professionally in tennis and uses Art and Patrick to vicariously play the tantalizing matches of her dreams. To fuel their individual performance in the sport, she treats Art nearly like a child, mollycoddling his career moves and his feelings before or after a big match. Driven by his ego, she sleeps with Patrick to give him a sense that he is literally on the same-playing field as Art: We may be at different points professionally, but I can also have Tashi the way you have Tashi. Tashi is not a good partner to Art. She is only loyal to tennis, guided to make decisions that create a more exciting game, even if that means toying with his fragility to the point of a mental break.
Acting-wise, the strongest performances came from Art and Patrick, whose chemistry was beyond question, undeniable. Zendaya’s acting in the film as leading lady was definitely good, especially considering the audience has not seen her in a role this chronologically fusioned or sensual. She makes a distinctive effort between her approach to portraying younger, wide-eyed Tashi versus the more mature, conniving figure.
However, I was not fully convinced that her acting matched the complexity of older Tashi, particularly regarding being a parent. In this dynamic, I felt similar towards Art too, because of how young the pair look despite playing characters who speak about “approaching 40.” Though their daughter is shown for a few minutes, to understand Art and Tashi’s characters, fully, is to see them as parents too - and there was a disconnect. It could be argued that this was completely intentional. The two were rarely seen as active parents, and instead, there was an unnamed mother figure watching over their young daughter, Lily. Tennis was their true child, and Lily was an afterthought. This was further confirmed in a conversation between Patrick and Tashi, where the jejune tennis player doesn’t remember Lily’s actual name. Despite this specific discourse, Tashi is the oldest, most mature character Zendaya has played to date, and it is clear she is on track to becoming a certified Hollywood great.
Although Challengers is centered on a sport so action-packed, the movie itself is a slow burner - with the height of the plot thickening at the last 25 minutes of the 2 hour and 11 minute film. Even after watching, the characters’ impact lived on, leaving the audience to imagine the Challengers universe 10 years down the line - would Tashi find another player to make her muse? Would her daughter become a tennis prodigy? Would Art and Patrick investigate their relationship further? Clearly, the film ends at the perfect sweet spot - it keeps you wanting more; conceivably alluding to Tashi’s relationship with playing the sport, herself. Because ultimately, Tashi was left wanting more than what tennis gave her.