Warning: This article contains spoilers for Challengers
Summary
- Tashi married Art to live vicariously through his tennis success.
- Tashi slept with Patrick to ensure Art's victory and tennis career success.
- Challengers is really a love story between Patrick and Art, exploring ambition and desire.
Challengers has received overwhelmingly positive reviews for its stellar performances, scintillating drama, and nail-biting tension.
The film centers on Tashi, a rising tennis champion turned coach, who molds her husband, Art, into an elite athlete. However, when Patrick, her ex-boyfriend, and Art's ex-friend, reemerges and threatens Art's success, Tashi finds herself succumbing to the mounting pressure. The success of Challengers hinges on the cast's chemistry with each other, as the love triangle is central to the film's conflict. Each time Challengers cuts back in time, it reveals newer and higher stakes for Patrick and Art's match in the present. The film is as much about tennis as it is about love, friendship, and personal glory.
Why Tashi Married Art Instead Of Patrick
Tashi Saw The Opportunity To Live Vicariously Through Art's Success In Tennis
Much like a tennis rally itself, Tashi ping-pongs between Art and Patrick throughout the film. After making out with both of them on the night they first met, Tashi initially chooses which of them to date based on who wins the tennis game the following day. When Patrick wins, he and Tashi date while she's at Stanford, until she irreversibly injures her knee one day and Patrick isn't there for her, Art is. However, this only results in her ending things with Patrick, and not getting together with Art. It's also not the real reason she leaves Patrick.
While Tashi is playing college tennis at Stanford, Patrick is playing professionally. Just before her match, however, they fight because he wants to talk about Art, while all she wants to talk about is tennis. Patrick is pontificating about how Art is trying to break them up and manipulate their relationship, but Tashi is single-mindedly concerned with Patrick's success in his tennis career. This fight is the real reason Tashi ends up over-exerting in her match out of frustration, leading to her tragic injury and ending her relationship with Patrick.
Ultimately, the Challengers love triangle is set up such that Patrick loves Art, Art loves Tashi, and Tashi loves neither. She only loves tennis and winning.
Tashi then does not get with Art until a few years later, when the two of them meet at a diner, and now his tennis career is going well. Tashi sees in Art the potential to excel at tennis and for her to live vicariously through his success. So when Art invites her to coach him, she agrees, and even gets together with him and eventually marries him. Ultimately, the Challengers love triangle is set up such that Patrick loves Art, Art loves Tashi, and Tashi loves neither. She only loves tennis and winning.
Why Tashi Sleeps With Patrick While In A Relationship With Art
The Reason Must Be Seen Through The Lens Of Her Love For Tennis
Only at the end of Challengers, during the climactic match between Patrick and Art, does the film reveal that Tashi slept with Patrick the night before. This new information immediately elevates the already high stakes of the game. However, that’s not all that happened between Tashi and Patrick that night. More importantly, she asks him to deliberately lose to Art, as she views this match as an opportunity to resurrect Art’s dwindling morale and confidence in his tennis career. For her, if he wins this match, he can qualify for the US Open, and won’t retire as a “failure.”
The reason Tashi sleeps with Patrick thus has to be seen through the lens of her obsession with tennis, as the love triangle of Challengers is largely a vessel to explore Tashi’s ambition and love for the sport.
While the film doesn’t reveal exactly why Tashi sleeps with Patrick, it could have been for several reasons. With Art’s withering conviction in his tennis career, Tashi is probably less attracted to him now. She could also be more attracted to Patrick as she believed he was actually more likely to beat Art. Alternatively, Tashi could have felt that sleeping with Patrick would appease him, making him more likely to give her what she wanted and lose to Art. Or maybe she was sowing the seeds to leave Art once he retired so she could then coach Patrick.
Tashi sees tennis as the ultimate relationship, which forms the basis through which she approaches her actual relationship with these two men. The reason Tashi sleeps with Patrick thus has to be seen through the lens of her obsession with tennis, as the love triangle of Challengers is largely a vessel to explore Tashi’s ambition and love for the sport.
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Does Tashi Really Hate Art Like Patrick Suggests?
She Resents Art's Low Self-Esteem And Dwindling Ambition
Tashi likely does not hate Art as Patrick suggests, but she resents his low self-esteem and dithering drive to excel at tennis. The whole reason she chose to marry Art hinged on his success as a tennis player and her ability to be a part of that success. Now, Art wanting to give that up for mundane domesticity makes her feel betrayed and disappointed. Tashi feels repulsed by Art’s self-doubt and weakening ambition. She finds it pathetic, and has no interest in living a regular domestic life, like Art increasingly does.
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More than hating Art, Tashi deeply desires him to succeed, take control of his career, and defeat Patrick as a stepping stone to qualifying for the US Open. Patrick perhaps suggests that Tashi hates Art because he might be projecting his insecurities about how Tashi has viewed him in the past. Patrick, too, might have speculated on many reasons why Tashi had left him and chosen to marry Art over him. His suggestion that she hates Art might be a reflection of his own ruminations about his severed relationship with her and Art.
More than hating Art, Tashi deeply desires him to succeed, take control of his career, and defeat Patrick.
Are Patrick And Art In Love With Each Other?
Challengers Can Be Seen As A Love Story Between Them
Another consistent thread through Challengers is Patrick and Art’s homoerotic relationship. In many ways, the film is more of a love story between Tashi and tennis on one hand and Patrick and Art on the other, rather than the love triangle it appears to be. In this sense, it is a complex portrait of ambition, desire, and masculinity. While Patrick may be in love with Art, Art is likely not in love with Patrick as Art has always been besotted by Tashi, her beauty, and her unparalleled talent at tennis.
This is why Patrick wants to reach out to Art, reconnect, and bond over competitive tennis like they did back in the day. In contrast, Art is largely concerned with maintaining his relationship with Tashi — and until the very end, he views defeating Patrick as merely a means to that end. However, when Patrick signals that he slept with Tashi the night before, it not only shows Art how easily Tashi could betray him, but also reminds Art about his camaraderie with Patrick and how thrilling, fun, and joyful their dynamic used to be.
Challengers thus end with the two men ionately hugging each other. It suggests that they might have now realized how they were being used by Tashi and that she was not worth them throwing away their relationship with each other. It also cements Challengers as a love story between Patrick and Art, as narratively, the film's flashbacks begin with them being double partners, the central conflict sees them fall out with each other, and the last frame shows them together.
What Tashi Really Wants Out Of Her Relationships
She Lives For The Thrill of Competition, Success, And Prestige In Tennis
Tashi only lives for the high she derives from good quality tennis and winning. From the very beginning, she chooses between the two men based on who wins in a tennis match and subsequently switches between them based on their drive for the game and their likelihood of achieving eminence and success. From their first night together, it is evident that Tashi derives less pleasure from actually being with Patrick or Art and more from their desire for her and subsequent competition with each other over her.
After her knee injury, Tashi realizes that she can no longer compete at that level and achieve her dreams. So she pivots to using Art and Patrick as vessels for her own ambition, seeking to live vicariously through their success. That's what she wants to get out of their relationships – she wants to see them excel at the sport and provide her with the thrill of competition, success, and prestige. Challengers thus has a circular ending, which links back to the first night the trio met and Patrick and Art are competing over Tashi.
Challengers is currently playing in cinemas.
Challengers
- Release Date
- April 26, 2024
- Runtime
- 131 Minutes
- Director
- Luca Guadagnino
WHERE TO WATCH
Challengers follows tennis player-turned-coach Tashi as she transforms her husband Art into a Grand Slam champion. To revitalize his career, she enters him in a lower-tier tournament where he confronts his past, facing both his former best friend and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.
- Writers
- Justin Kuritzkes
- Studio(s)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Pascal Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Amazon MGM Studios
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