Challengers
チャレンジャーズ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A tennis triangle where the match is the sex scene.
The film cuts back and forth across thirteen years. In order, it runs like this. In 2006 two best friends, Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig, win the junior doubles title at the US Open, and both fall for Tashi Duncan, the rising star of the girls' game. She comes to their hotel room, kisses them both, steers them into kissing each other and leaves, promising her number to whichever of them wins their singles final. Patrick wins, and he and Tashi become a couple. Art goes to Stanford with her; Patrick turns professional. Art quietly tells each of them that the other is not serious. After a row with Patrick, who then skips her match, Tashi tears a knee ligament on court, and her playing career is over. She sends Patrick away, Art takes her side, and the friendship ends.
Tashi becomes Art's coach, then his girlfriend, then his wife, and his career rises. In 2011, engaged, she spends a night with Patrick. By 2019 she and Art are a wealthy couple with a young daughter, and Art, one title short of a career Grand Slam, is injured, tired and losing. Tashi enters him in a small Challenger tournament in New Rochelle to rebuild his confidence. Patrick, broke and sleeping in his car, has entered too. Art tells Tashi he will retire at the end of the season. The night before the two men meet in the final, she asks Patrick to throw the match, and they have sex in his car.
The final goes to a third set. At Art's match point, Patrick copies Art's old habit before a serve, the signal the boys once agreed would mean that he had slept with Tashi. Art understands, lets the point go, and the match goes to a tiebreak. In it both men play as they have not played in years. Art leaps for a volley, crashes into Patrick over the net, and they end up holding each other. The score is never shown. Tashi leaps from her seat, shouting "Come on", and smiles.
Starring
Zendayaas Tashi Duncan
A tennis prodigy whose career ends with a knee injury, who becomes one friend's coach and wife and the other's lover.
Tashi Duncan’s story
Tashi is the rising star of the girls' game when Art and Patrick fall for her. She kisses them both, steers them into kissing each other and promises her number to the winner of their final; what she wants, she says, is to watch good tennis. She dates Patrick. After a row with him, and his absence from her match, she tears a knee ligament, never plays again, and sends him away. She becomes Art's coach, then his wife, and in 2011, engaged, spends a night with Patrick. In 2019, with Art losing and set on retiring, she asks Patrick to throw the final to him, and they have sex in his car. When the two men's tiebreak becomes the tennis they once played, she leaps from her seat shouting 'Come on'.
Josh O'Connoras Patrick Zweig
Art's best friend since boyhood and Tashi's first boyfriend, a gifted player scraping by on the lower circuits.
Patrick Zweig’s story
Patrick wins the junior final and with it Tashi, who makes him keep their meetings secret. He turns professional and they date at a distance, until a row over her coaching him ends with him skipping her match. She is injured, sends him away, and Art takes her side, ending their friendship. In 2011 he spends a night with Tashi, by then engaged to Art. By 2019 he is broke and sleeping in his car. In New Rochelle he needles Art, then tries to make peace and is rebuffed. The night before the final Tashi asks him to lose; disgusted, he agrees, and they have sex in his car. At Art's match point he gives their old signal for having slept with her, and the tiebreak ends with the two men in each other's arms.
Mike Faistas Art Donaldson
A champion coached and married by Tashi, near the end of his career and losing the will to win.
Art Donaldson’s story
Art falls for Tashi as hard as Patrick does, and loses her to him. At Stanford with her, he quietly tells each of them that the other is not serious, and when she is injured he takes her side and ends the friendship. She becomes his coach, then his girlfriend, then his wife, and his career rises; in 2011 he notices that she has spent a night with Patrick. By 2019 he is one title short of a career Grand Slam, injured, tired and losing, and tells Tashi he will retire at the end of the season. In New Rochelle he rebuffs Patrick's attempt at peace. At his match point in the final he reads Patrick's old signal and lets the point go, and in the tiebreak he leaps for a volley and ends up in Patrick's arms.
Why it matters
Challengers is a love triangle in which almost nobody says what they want, so the wanting comes out on the court. Tashi's playing career ended in college, and her ambition has nowhere to go but into the two men who love her: she coaches one, sleeps with the other, and, as she tells them the night they meet, what she wants is to watch good tennis. The film lets the rivalry between Art and Patrick carry an attraction the two never name, and it treats competitiveness as a kind of desire, as intimate and as possessive as sex. It grossed 96 million dollars worldwide, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score won the Golden Globe. What it leaves open is whether the three of them love one another or love the contest, and whether, for people shaped so young by winning, the two were ever separate.