Photo by Tracy Fuentes
**Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers about the movie Challengers.
In Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, obsessive love is played out through tennis. The three main characters seek different desires in each other, setting off a decades-long love triangle, where obsession battles stability.
Best friends and tennis players Art and Patrick become obsessed with fellow player Tashi after they watch her win a game. They begin a playful game of tug-o-war when they are both vying for her affection. Their friendship begins to spiral when Tashi picks Patrick, and Art struggles to cope with it. He manufactures division between the two, which ultimately results in Tashi breaking her knee.
In the scene between Patrick and Art, where they share a churro while discussing Tashi and tennis, the audience starts to see their mutual obsession. Art resents Patrick for dating Tashi but is still drawn to him. He bites out of the same churro Patrick is eating, and then proceeds to trip him when they leave. Their relationship is warping and becoming more complicated. They view each other as competition, they resent each other, but are enraptured with each other. It’s a scene where the characters are incredibly intimate, but the jealous tension between them is palpable.
We are starting to see the cracks form between the three characters. Art is manipulating him, but Patrick seems almost charmed by it. He loves competing with Art, and is happy to bring the game off of the courts. Tennis and romance are starting to blur.
Art’s attempt to create a rift between Tashi and Patrick works, resulting in a fight between the two before one of Tashi’s games. In this fight, we start to see the dividing tensions caused by each character’s unique desires. Patrick’s refusal to be submissive irritates Tashi, while also pulling her in. Patrick enjoys a game, but also wants to feel valued and important. Art is happy submitting to Tashi, but struggles with feeling like he is not as good of a player as his friends.
“I’m not some fucking lapdog who’s going to sit around and let you punish me. I’m not Art,” Patrick tells Tashi.
The crux of their triangle is visible here. They all need something from each other, but are unable to admit it. They are trying to resist what they yearn for, but are ultimately unable to.
After she breaks her knee, Tashi tries to settle down with Art’s unwavering devotion, but ultimately cannot live without Patrick’s fire. Now unable to play herself, she tunnels her obsessive need for tennis into Art’s career. He follows her wishes, despite faltering in keeping his love of the game. He’s unsure whether he wants to keep playing. While looking at photos of himself in his prime, he can’t seem to recreate the drive he once had.
Patrick is able to exploit this weakness in Art and worm his way back into Tashi’s life. He clocks Art’s unhappiness in the game as well as Tashi’s inability to be satisfied if Art does not play. He asks her to coach him, and taunts her with the fact that he has always been a better player than Art. Tashi is infuriated, but keeps his phone number. She resents Art for failing her, and wonders if Patrick can give her what she yearns for: a good game.
Patrick tells Tashi, “The universe is throwing us together because we need each other. You and I need each other right now in order to get to the next phase of our lives.”
For Tashi, what is a life without passion? When she realized she would never play again, a crack forms in her facade and her true feelings shine through for a minute. One of the only scenes where she is completely honest is a scene where she is alone, and saying nothing at all. She takes off the brace on her irreparable knee, and rests against a tree. She cries silently, all the light gone from her eyes. Her center of gravity is completely crushed, and she has no idea what to do. She hides this agony from everyone else, but allows the audience to see her. We are a voyeur in a moment she would never choose to share with Art or Patrick. She is only able to show weakness when she is alone.
We see how the three characters lie, but are unable to hide their true desires in their actions. Tashi tells Patrick he’s worth nothing, but keeps his number and calls it later in the day. Art tells Tashi he wants to keep playing, but continues to falter in every match. In this film, action speaks louder than words. There is an underbelly beneath each convo.
When poor and struggling Patrick realizes he is playing Art again after over a decade of not seeing him, he can’t leave well enough alone. He’s never been one to stay in his own lane. He surprises Art in the sauna room and begins another verbal sparring.
In a scene where both characters are totally alone and almost completely exposed, they continue to lie to each other. Art attempts to hide his lingering affection for his ex-best friend, as well as his jealousy that he has yet to beat Patrick. Patrick fakes confidence, pretending to not be hurt that he has failed in his tennis career. He is still looking for love from Art, and the hurt in his eyes reveals that the pain of losing him has been stronger than he lets on.
Art cannot get him out of his head, and is failing once again to beat Patrick Zweig. He is too in his head to have control. Even after all these years, he is still unable to let Patrick go. He loves them both, he resents them both. He is struggling with his own inadequacies. Why can’t he beat Patrick? Why isn’t he enough?
In the same way that Tashi hides from him, Art hides from his wife as well. For the first scenes we get of Art, he doesn’t speak a word. Tashi talks to him, members of his team talk to him, but he is silent. The audience sees how controlled he is by the world around him, and his unwillingness to speak his mind. The prep for this tennis match feels monotonous to the audience, because it is that way for Art. As Tashi gets him ready, he sits and stares at an old photo of himself. In it he is grinning from ear to ear, holding a trophy. The camera pans back to him now, and he is a shell of the man in the photo. He doesn’t have the drive he used to. He is pretending for Tashi’s sake, at the sacrifice of his own happiness.
The audience’s heart breaks for their marriage. They are two people who love each other, but are unable to give each other what they need. There is a lesson here, about what we as people accept in order to keep what is stable to us. We give up all-consuming desires to stop people from leaving. All of our main characters are unhappy adults because they are unable to go for what they yearn for. They think they will grow to love their life for what it is, but it’s not enough. The return of Patrick triggers Art and Tashi to finally be honest with themselves.
Tashi’s “I Told Ya” shirt becomes a physical representation of this conflict. She wears it while talking to Art, and then it is worn by Patrick later in the film after he takes it from her. As they get older, it’s like the past is taunting them, saying “I told you so.” Tashi and Art are not over Patrick, and the repression of their feelings is coming back to haunt them.
When he realizes Patrick has begun to throw the game because Tashi asked him to, his world crashes down. He looks around, sweaty, and knows she has cheated on him, again. The crowd surrounding him is ignored as the pressure is squeezing in. The film slows down and zooms in on his face. Seconds turn into hours. He falters, his eyes get watery, he is unsure who to look at. Patrick is prideful and Tashi is nervous. As the game stalls, he is forced to make a decision. What is there to do but accept her for who she is?
Deep down he has always known their relationship cannot work without Patrick. Each twosome is unbalanced without the third. Art and Tashi are too boring without Patrick. Tashi and Patrick are too impulsive without Art. Patrick and Art have no direction without Tashi.
“I think there’s real love there (between Art and Tashi). But no fire. Just ice,” Patrick tells Tashi.
The three finally find their peace when they decide to stop fighting their desires and accept that they all need each other. The movie ends with a hug between Art and Patrick: a truce, and an acceptance of their obsession. The relief is palpable. The tension in the editing releases and the slow motion stops. They are back in the real world, finally accepting the true versions of themselves.
Guadagnino is telling the audience to not accept what is easy, he wants us to stop lying to ourselves. True satisfaction only comes with the truth. The tagline for the movie, “Her game. Her rules,” is the message. Your life, your rules.
Kindergarten 