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Singles tennis is unlike any other sport.
There’s no team to support a player when they’re down, no coach to pep talk between sets, no distractions to pull the spectator’s eyes away from the two individuals standing on opposite sides of the net. Tennis is much more than a game — it’s a sometimes three, four or five hour relationship between two people trying to anticipate each other’s next moves. To excel at singles tennis, a player has to be an expert at reading their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses right off the bat and use them to adjust their own game. All of this complexity is exactly what director Luca Guadagnino portrayed in his box office hit, ‘Challengers,’ starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. ‘Challengers,’ of course, had commercial appeal with Zendaya leading, a name that’s become synonymous with striking beauty, versatility and commitment to whatever role is thrown her way. Shockingly, ‘Challengers’ is Zendaya’s first time leading the charge of a major motion picture and her second time producing a film, the first being Netflix’s ‘Malcom & Marie.’ While Zendaya might have stepped into the spotlight with her Disney Channel roles in the 2010s, ‘Challengers’ proves she’s always had powerful leading lady potential that Guadagnino pulled out of her.
Guadagnino is one of the most in-demand directors in Hollywood at the moment, with seven upcoming projects including a film adaptation of William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ‘Queer’ starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey. His films like ‘Call Me By Your Name’ and ‘Bones and All’ have given him a reputation of weaving erotic and emotionally complicated themes into his work, and ‘Challengers’ is no exception. Perhaps not on the same level as those films as far as sexual content, but this story doesn’t require it to be. The true relationship in ‘Challengers’ unfolds on the tennis court over the span of 13 years, bleeding into the personal lives of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Faist) and Patrick Zweig (O’Connor).
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The Game is On
‘Challengers’ opens with shots of Tashi, Art and Patrick during an intense tennis match between the two men. While their dynamic is uncertain in the beginning, the visual tension Guadagnino creates with close-up shots of their faces during the match sets the stage for a flashback scene quickly after. The film’s nonlinear structure works strongly in its favor, even though it could potentially be confusing to some viewers upon first watch. It mimics the back and forth of a tennis ball over the net — one sequence in the present day of 2019, and another jumping back to 2006 when Art and Patrick were starting out as young doubles partners. Since tennis is a very formulaic sport, sometimes watching it for long periods of time can become dull. But with the teamwork of Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the tennis scenes in ‘Challengers’ grip the viewer and don’t let go. From shots of the players whacking the ball back and forth at breakneck speed to the crowd’s heads turning in unison to watch, the tennis scenes were clearly as carefully choreographed as a dance scene would be. Since it’s impossible to match real tennis play with descriptions in a script, The New York Times revealed that the actors only held a racquet handle while filming the scenes leaving the head and ball were added in with visual effects.
Accompanying these high-stake tennis matches throughout the film was a score composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, an Oscar-winning partnership that never misses with their unique synthetic beats that add another level of sonic tension to scenes. The score has become one of the most talked-about aspects of ‘Challengers’ since it doesn’t present itself subtly — the energetic rhythm accompanies both tennis scenes and pivotal emotional moments between characters.
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ATP: Art, Tashi and Patrick
While ATP might traditionally stand for The Association of Tennis Professionals, it also spells out the first initials of the ‘Challengers’ love triangle. It seems a little too profound to be a coincidence, but who knows. Before ever meeting Tashi, Art and Patrick were childhood friends and doubles partners who ended up winning the boys’ junior doubles championship at the US Open in 2006. They share a triumphant hug and end up tackling each other to the ground in the embrace, which subtly sets the tone that their relationship is deeper than traditional doubles partners. Enter Tashi Duncan — 18-year-old tennis hotshot who just so happens to be both Art and Patrick’s type. Upon meeting her, it’s clear Tashi has the upper hand with both boys wrapped around her finger vying for her phone number. They invite her to their hotel room where two beds are already pushed together, an interesting set detail that raises more questions about the nature of Art and Patrick’s relationship. This leads into the scandalous sequence alluded to in the film’s trailer, where Tashi kisses both boys and then they end up kissing each other. She stops before sex is involved, Guadagnino crafted the scene to make the kissing passionate enough to leave audiences gasping for air. Before she leaves, Tashi offers to give her number to whoever wins the juniors singles final. It’s the first example of her relationship with the boys not only completely revolving around tennis, but also being transactional based on wins and losses.
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Patrick ends up winning the match, gets Tashi’s number and succeeds in making Art jealous on the court with a clever trick that ends up reappearing in the final act of the film. One of the most explosive off-court scenes in ‘Challengers’ happens during Patrick’s visit to Stanford, where Tashi and Art both attend school. Patrick and Tashi get into a heated argument before one of her matches, and the camera whips back and forth between the couple like a spectator’s head at a tennis match, proving that they’re always playing the game, even off the court. Right after this fight, Tashi suffers a career-ending injury to her knee during the match, where Art runs down to help her since Patrick was petty and skipped it. Art is clearly Guadagnino’s “good guy” in the love triangle situation, and Faist embraces that by masterfully constructing an innocent persona for the character that seems to care deeply about Tashi as a person, and not just a player. This moment after the injury alters the course of the film because Tashi no longer wants anything to do with Patrick — and ends up dedicating her time to coaching Art and forming a tennis power couple.
Even though Art and Tashi get married and Art technically “beats” Patrick for her affection, neither man truly ever has her love. Tashi’s main relationship in her life is tennis, and when that was stripped away from her with her injury, she had to find another way to keep the game in her life. She accomplished that through her marriage and coaching position with Art, but he never reached the level of greatness that she wanted. In moments when Art would express his love for Tashi, her response was “I know,” a detached way of acknowledging her power over him. Zendaya’s performance in ‘Challengers’ is the most promising of her film career thus far, since she’s proven she can handle a morally complex character that’s incredibly difficult to root for during a majority of the film. Portraying Tashi’s shameless manipulation of Art and Patrick while bouncing between them like a tennis ball depending on what she needed at the moment proves that at its core, ‘Challengers’ is one large tennis match.
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The Final Countdown
So, how does this messy co-dependent three-way relationship end? Guadagnino leaves it somewhat up to the viewers’ interpretation. The final act culminates in a present-day match between Art and Patrick at a wild card Challenger tournament in New Rochelle, New York. Tashi entered Art into the tournament to get his confidence back by beating lower level players, seemingly oblivious to the fact Patrick was playing in it. Did she actually know this beforehand, setting the two men up for one final battle for her attention? Or, could it possibly have been a complete coincidence? In a moment of panic, Tashi meets up with Patrick before the match to ask him to throw it to Art. She’s lost all confidence in her husband that she personally helped to coach, and this is a key moment that the audience can easily lose any respect they had left for the character. This scene also paints Patrick as somewhat of a “villain” for continuously betraying his former best friend and taking Tashi for himself. O’Connor has experience in that front with his work as Prince Charles in ‘The Crown’ television series, where he became quite good and playing a master manipulator.
During the match, Art and Patrick both take a set and advance to a third. They’re surprisingly evenly matched, until Patrick honors Tashi’s request and begins throwing the match through double faults on his serve. Guadagnino calls back to the earlier scene of Art and Patrick playing together and fighting over Tashi’s affections in a truly genius manner, leading into a tie breaking rally where both men play with a fire that hasn’t existed since their days as doubles partners. Art, Tashi and Patrick have to be a complete trio in order for true tennis to exist between them. The best tennis matches in history revolve around the synergy between two opponents becoming one spectacle on the court, but in ‘Challengers,’ Tashi’s influence is included in the equation. For better or worse, that’s up to the audience to decide.
Cast: Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor
Cinematography: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom | Editor: Marco Costa
Director: Luca Guadagnino | Writer: Justin Kutrizkes | Producers: Luca Guadagnino, Amy Pascal, Rachel O’Connor
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