Challengers

[ICN > MUC 1/4] *You don’t know what tennis is.  What is it? It’s a relationship. * Through just three sets of a tennis match, we see the whole relationship of Art and Patrick, the friendship, the lust, the latent homoeroticism, the collapse, the climax. If as Tashi says, that we are always talking about tennis, she is victory. Patrick wins the first set six matches to two - the teenage years, his and Tashi’s relationship. Art wins the second six matches to two - his and Tashi’s marriage. But the final set is the present, Tashi is fought over there and then, six matches to six, tiebreaker.  She is never only the trophy however, she is god. The film’s religious undertones, made most obvious by the exchange: What am I Jesus? Yeah. but present throughout in the choral music or the cross hanging from Tashi’s neck, cement Tashi as divine. In Challengers, the climax of the film is a form of judgement, on a life-altering scale, preformed by a seemingly unimpeachable and infallible god, the apotheosis of which is made by pain and desire, both her own and others. She is both the deciding orchestrator and the climatic victory.  But beyond all of that, I cannot talk about the film without praising the final scene, a literal masterpiece of camerawork, anticipation, and suspense. The scene was so intense that when Zendaya screamed my eyes watered instantly - but I think that’s part of how the film works, in the latent coital tension of it all, the climax comes at the end. COME ON!