Challengers: A complex and sticky love triangle depicted as a tennis match

Haru Choi
Mar 16
5 min read

Luca Guadagnino’s first film in 2024, “Challengers”, is a time-shifting sports drama that follows the story and relationship of three tennis players: Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). The movie uses its sharp editing to jump back and forth in time. A tennis match between Art and Patrick plays out in the present while the relationship of the three characters complex and deepen in the past. The movie is structured in a way where the past indicates what happens in the present as every time an event unfolds in the past the audience can use that to guess who has the advantage in the match. With an erotic romance, highstake competition, and psychological tension, “Challengers” explores ambition, love, relationship and power dynamics, and the relationship between sports and humans, creating a compelling story.

Any fan of Luca Guadagnino’s work will know there are common themes inside his work. These include things such as warmth, life, and the human body. From this we can tell that Guadagnino’s discography is about exploring how precious and invaluable it is to have life. These running themes inside his work can be seen where Guadagnino focuses on the human body causing his films to feel sensual.`This theme can be seen in challengers as well since it utilizes flashy camera movements and editing to present itself. “Challengers’” eye-catching production brings a feeling of being alive and reveals the vivid ecstasy of life. “Challengers” is different from the usual tennis movies as the movie seems to only have attention on the bodies that hit the ball instead of the ball itself. While the sports crowd in the movie are busy looking at the direction of the ball, only Tashi is fixated on the people hitting the ball, just like how the movie portrays the game. Only the movie and Tashi are focused on the bodies revealing what the core of the movie is.

The main plot of “Challengers" centers around the events happening during the 2019 finals of a tournament in New Rochelle. Pieces of the past are inserted in between the match to reveal the hidden meaning of the tennis match happening and help show the audience what the movie really wants to say. This unique structure gives “Challengers” a creative flair to it. The movie shows how much the three characters have changed between the present and the past 13 years ago. These two time periods are placed in a way that they seem like they are talking with each other to show that the past is needed in order to understand the events happening in the present and the characters in the present.

A very interesting point in the movie is that every sex scene in the movie is compared to a tennis match and every tennis match in the movie is compared to a sex scene. This means the grand final that takes place throughout the whole movie is a metaphor for a sex scene between the two players. Along with this, the flashbacks inserted in between the movie serve as a metaphor for the pieces of desire that were never satisfied in the past. Throughout the movie tennis and sex are continuously overlapping, making the two feel as if they are one. This metaphor is how “Challengers” creatively and artistically delivers its messages and themes to the audience. In a flashback Tashi comes over to Patrick and Art’s room after being invited and tells the two to sit by her on the bed. Art sits on the left side of the screen, Patrick sits on the right, while Tashi sits in the middle. Tashi eventually starts taking turns kissing the boys and when all three of them start making out Tashi slowly pulls herself back leaving only Art and Patrick making out with each other. This scene mirrors the tennis match happening in the present as the positions of the three during the tennis match are the same as the positions they were in the makeout scene. Tashi is in the middle sitting with the audience while Art is on the left of the screen and Patrick is on the right. Tashi is removed from the match as she is in the audience leaving only Patrick and Art just like how Tashi removed herself from the makeout session leaving the two boys. Therefore, the tennis match the two boys are having is a metaphor for the kiss scene of Art and Patrick.

The movie portrays the love triangle between Art, Patrick, and Tashi where Tashi is the centerpiece of the love triangle. However, by the end of the movie the audience realizes that it wasn’t actually Tashi who was the center of the relationship. Although the movie has a multitude of sexual themes, it does not depict the actual sex scenes in the movie that specifically. All the sex scenes in the movie, the ones involving Tashi, either end up being cut off right before anything happens or is implied that it happened to the audience. If you think about it there isn’t really an actual ‘sex scene’ in the movie. The movie doesn’t explicitly portray the sexual scenes with Tashi but emphasize the scenes where Art and Patrick have any physical affections. Therefore, the movie is actually suggesting the sexual love between the two men instead of the love with Tashi. The scene where the two men hug each other after winning a tennis game and the churros scene can be examples of this love that the movie implies.

Since the relationship between the two men is what the movie is really focused on, it leaves the question: What is the role of Tashi? There is a scene where Tashi adds an S to the phrase: Game Changer. The phrase changing from Game Changer to Game Changers indicates that Tashi plays a pivotal role in the thrilling final match between the two men. Both Art and Patrick ask Tashi to be their coach in the movie, where Tashi accepts Art’s offer but rejects Patrick’s. However, Tashi did ask Patrick to lose the game with Art on purpose and Patrick technically followed through on Tashi’s instructions, meaning that she did coach Patrick and Art. Furthermore, it can be seen that the two men played the match following Tashi’s coaching. Therefore, it can be seen that Tashi created the powerful match between Art and Patrick. This suggests Tashi’s character where all she really wanted was a great game of tennis. “Challengers” ends with Tashi screaming the words “come one” after an exciting moment in the match and ends without showing whether Art or Patrick won the game. Some may think it is a let down of an ending, but the film does show the winner of the match, who is Tashi. By ending the movie with a scene of Tashi and not revealing the result of the match, “Challengers” emphasizes Tashi’s character and her being the centerpiece to the tennis match.

Overall, “Challengers” is a fantastic film about relationships and how the past and present interact. It showcases its mastery of the usage of symbolism, metaphors, and foreshadowing, making it a great movie for people who want to study film to watch. Like every Luca Guadagnino film it is a great summer watch and I can’t really see anyone who would dislike this movie very much. If you are a fan of Luca Guadagnino or tennis this should be a must watch.