I read “Challengers” before I saw it. I had got my hands on a copy of the screenplay and started to read it before my first class of the day. I spent the next hour and a half of my class thinking about it — I needed to know what happened. I spent my second class of the day splitting my screen between my class notes and the gradually intensifying script. The sociology of sports was interesting, but the lives of fictional tennis players fighting for what and who they wanted was absolutely enthralling. I remember reading about an intense, hardworking young woman forced to abandon her passion and thinking, as she smashed her racket to the ground in pure frustration, that I absolutely loved this character.
The first time I saw “Challengers” in theaters (and I went many times), I spent the last quarter of the movie leaning at a 45-degree angle toward the screen, with my hands glued to my face and my eyes to the screen. When I left the theater, my friend told me that she “didn’t understand the ending.” Luckily, I am obnoxiously willing to over-explain movie endings to my unsuspecting friends, so I explained to her that it didn’t matter who won the final tennis match of the film, because everyone was satisfied. In less than a minute, the movie’s ending had turned on its axis, shifting from a stressful, anger-inducing game to the perfect release of tension which had been building for more than two hours. Art (Mike Faist, “West Side Story”) got his spark back, Patrick (Josh O’Connor, “The Crown”) got Art back and Tashi (Zendaya, “Dune: Part Two”) got to watch some “good fucking tennis.”
A few months later, I took my phone to the Apple store to get it fixed. There, I met one of the most interesting people I’ve probably ever met, though I don’t remember his name. I told him I wanted to be a screenwriter one day, and he told me he used to work with film and television scripts. But when we began talking about our favorite movies and I mentioned that my latest obsession was Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” (which I had seen four times by that point), he grimaced. He hadn’t seen it, he told me. It looked too cheesy.
My mom, an avid book lover, had said the same thing, as did my professor from a Shakespeare course I had taken over the summer. It looked “predictable.” “I saw the trailer,” they had all told me. They “could guess” what it was about.
I began to wonder why so many curious and intelligent people talked about this great movie with such a disinterested attitude. If the plot was gripping, the characters layered and interesting and the music engaging, what was the problem? Even awards season didn’t seem to respect the film, despite the fact that it has one of the best scores and screenplays I had ever come across. But when I thought back to my first time watching the trailer, I found a potential contributor to the anti-“Challengers” agenda — the film’s marketing. By including Rihanna’s “S&M” and the beginning of a threesome scene (that doesn’t actually result in a threesome) in its trailer, was it possible that “Challengers” had sold itself on its sexiness? What had that cost the film? By highlighting overt sexuality, had “Challengers” lost the respect of an audience that would have otherwise really engaged with its messages?
If you’ve never seen “Challengers,” let me make one thing clear — despite its sex-heavy marketing and the sexual tension between the characters, there is absolutely no sex in the movie. While the underlying sexuality is always present (and incredibly important), the sexually explicit reputation the film gained is purely a product of its marketing.
Each of the four times I saw “Challengers,” I realized something new. In fact, every time I watched it I would take it home with me, having some revelation about the story or noticing a pattern I’d missed while washing my face or brushing my teeth later that night. “Challengers” has a lot to say, and I have a lot to say about it. On my second watch, I began to notice Art’s role as the only true manipulator in the film — Tashi and Patrick are clunky in their manipulation; they get caught and are often labeled the movie’s villains. Art quietly gets himself exactly what he wants, all while maintaining his innocent “lapdog” persona and remaining underestimated by Tashi, Patrick and audience members alike. On my third watch, I began to consider how the unusual narrative structure, which forgoes a typical “resolution,” mimics that of a sexual experience — continuously building tension and eventually ending on a climax that acts as a satisfying release for all parties involved. The film is filled with meaningful details, especially relating to characterization, that can be critically engaged with when viewed by those with an intention to think critically — a demographic to whom the “Challengers” team failed to market.
“Challengers” may be a movie about sex, but it is not just a horny movie — it presents its sexual themes in a very intentional way that warrants real discussion. The representation of sexuality in “Challengers” doesn’t have to do only with actual sex. I believe that another key theme that makes “Challengers” a film worth critically examining is its commentary on gender roles and the manipulation of women, which is expressed through Tashi’s characterization.
When the boys meet Tashi, they ask her who she wants to win the match they’re going to play against each other the following day. She tells them that she doesn’t care — all she wants is “to watch some good fucking tennis.” The burning question of who Tashi will be rooting for intensifies until the very end of the movie, when Art and Patrick’s final game ends and Tashi screams with excitement — despite the fact that we don’t ever find out who wins. As an audience, we begin to wonder: Why is she so happy? Who had she been rooting for? What I believe screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes (“Queer”) wants us to understand is that it doesn’t matter.
I understand that anyone who has seen the movie and has put some thought toward the ending may consider this to be the obvious takeaway. But what I find so interesting about this moment isn’t just the perfection of its ambiguity or the satisfying eruption mimicking a sexual encounter, but rather the fact that we, as audience members, have committed a wrongdoing against Tashi. We have, like the men in the movie, spent more than two hours ignoring the words of a woman who explicitly told us her intentions at the beginning of the film. From the day she meets Art and Patrick, Tashi not only tells them that she doesn’t care who wins, but that she’s skeptical of getting involved with them at all, out of fear of “homewrecking” their friendship. During the iconic hotel scene, Tashi even guides the men toward each other while their eyes are closed, encouraging them to kiss each other instead of her. From the very outset of the film, Tashi is keenly aware of not only the boys’ own feelings for each other, but also the potential negative outcomes of becoming involved with them — even though they convince her to second guess herself and to get involved anyway.
It’s also important to note that everything Tashi predicts in the beginning of the film eventually comes true, from Art and Patrick being “homewrecked” to the lack of importance of the final game’s winner. It’s even in the film’s most iconic costume choice: Tashi’s “I Told Ya” t-shirt. Tashi quite literally tells the boys (and the audience) everything — and we still choose to ignore her. This is all to say that “Challengers” is not just a film about sex, or an ambitious woman, but about the sidelining of women. “Challengers” is a story — or, more accurately, a cautionary tale — about a woman who is quite literally sidelined in her own area of expertise after being manipulated away from trusting her gut.
The characters of “Challengers” are complicated and interesting — meaning that different people will perceive each lead in a slightly different light. However, across the board, I’ve heard one consistent word used to describe Tashi Duncan — “villain.” It is my belief that the public perception of Tashi as “evil” or as the “villain” of the film completely works against the narrative Kuritzkes is striving for. While Tashi is, indeed, a morally questionable character, the whole point is that they all are. Patrick continues to sabotage Art and Tashi’s romantic and professional relationships years after his falling out with them, and Art always knew he was willing to stab his best friend in the back to get the girl he liked — and he did. Tashi is no less morally problematic than the men in the film; but she’s no more problematic either.
“Challengers” is marketed as a sexy, easily digestible melodrama. Naturally, audiences who went in expecting a simple story categorized Tashi Duncan as a femme fatale — a sexual and manipulative woman looking to entrap a man and ruin his life. My fellow Daily Arts writer, Nina Smith, once wrote an article that described her experience as a child relating to characters written by men. She explains that the male characters were significantly easier to relate to. After all, they were written like humans, while the women were two-dimensional and boring — it felt like a man’s idea of a woman. I don’t believe that Kuritzkes falls victim to the same cliché in his writing; much like nearly every male protagonist, Tashi Duncan is written as a human first and a gendered being second. And the world didn’t know how to handle it. Tashi is a character full of nuance and contradiction — an ambitious and intense woman who is consistently shown being gracious and gentle with her child, her fans or customer service workers. This is all to say that Tashi is infinitely more complex and human than audiences are willing to give her credit for. Had “Challengers” been marketed as the complicated psychological film it is, rather than the sex-crazed melodrama it promised to be, perhaps audiences would have allowed Tashi more grace and nuance, as opposed to forcing her into the stereotypical role of the femme fatale.
I believe “Challengers” has a lot to say. I believe a lot of other people would have things to say about it too, had they seen the movie.
Sex sells. And “Challengers” successfully sold it. That is, if your definition of success is ticket sales. But the complicated and thematically layered work of Justin Kuritzkes and Luca Guadagnino didn’t just get snubbed by the Academy Awards — in many ways, it appears to have been snubbed by an entire swath of potential audience members who turned their noses up at the film’s marketing.
So, if you watched the trailer and thought “Challengers” wasn’t worth your time, but end up loving it after you watch it, just remember:
I Told Ya.
Senior Arts Editor Olivia Tarling can be reached at tarling@umich.edu.
