Challengers

Incredibly well paced and full of symbols, while being so funny. A movie about finding symbiose. The movie set the situation as fast as in the first scene. Tashi keep doing left and right to Art and Patrick in the middle of the tennis court, like a trophy looking for a winner or someone who can’t take a decision. The idea of symmetry/balance is present all over the movie both visually and in the relationships. A tennis is by default symmetric, that’s what it, a bit a way to balance the relation between the 2 players. But what happen when you try to play tennis at 3? The symmetry is especially highlighted in the scene in the hotel where both guys kiss while Tashi is in the middle. The symmetry in the relation between Tashi and each guys: - Tashi fall in love / back in love next to a car, symbol phallus / success - next to the Jeep of Art and next to the SUV of Patrick later - Tashi witness the transition of Art leaving tennis (and her) and Patrick joining tennis (and her as coach ++), with the sentence “I know you gonna be angry” and btw after each of this news her face become assymetric as if the news change her balance, one eye get closed more on both situations but on a different eye - after she get the news that Art is leaving tennis, the camera goes onto the curtains which are clearly assymetric too, the left side is bigger than the right, btw Patrick is playing on her left during the game - Tashi mention how tennis is about a balance relationship which the other player, a symbiose Dicks symbols everywhere. It’s obvious that the movie is about showing who has the biggest dick, and after all tennis is about playing with a racket in both end and tennis balls in the short. Breaking the racket is maybe even a way to show that a player in not masculine enough and his dick is broken ? Well all over the movie there are dicks, from the churros the guys share to the banane Patrick love. The storm symbolise her mood, she is in the tourment before the game. She knows that the next day she will be playing indirectly, though the play of the guys. So much that she screams at the end, as if she just finally realised that she was playing the game. Art is like butter, he is soft and never spike. He get in the mold and probably why he became a good player. He followed the rules, he found his symmetry and balance. Tashi follows her own interest and even though she is seen as a trophy since the beginning, the success of her boyfriend who ever it might be, he her way to get a trophy. She is above them.  Patrick is introduced as the element that disrupt harmony but he is part of it and the ending shows it well. He truly wants to play over all.