Challengers: “Bisexuality Was in Dire Need of Good PR”

More 'Challengers' talk, this time with the Oppenheimer of talking about Challengers (@BaldAnnDowd)

Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O’Connor in Challengers. Photo: MGM.

My mom famously would not let me watch Rugrats as a child because, according to her, Angelica Pickles “gave me an attitude.” Someone should cut me off from Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers: Tashi Duncan gives me an attitude too!

Tashi (Zendaya) believes tennis is a relationship, but Challengers turns every relationship into a game. Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) competed for her attention when the three of them played on the youth circuit, and they never really stopped. When they’re adults, Tashi is married to Art but thinking about Patrick. Does she swing between them, or are they led by her strings? From behind those Loewe sunglasses, and wearing designer everything even her frown, she watches them one-up each other to get closer to her.

Almost as fun as watching Challengers is talking about Challengers. The Tashi Duncan of talking about Challengers — it gir, hilarious, preternaturally gifted — is thee people’s princess herself, Bald Ann Dowd. Approaching Bald Ann Dowd (real name Sivi) via DM … I have never felt more like I’m sheepishly approaching a celebrity and asking for a photo, which is not something I do.¹ We are talking about the mind behind some of the greatest Challengers scholarship of our time: “[on a first date] so do you have any close friends from tennis boarding school?” “it's a patrickzweignomenon.” “Lydia Tár and Patrick Zweig in conversation at the 92nd Street Y” However you’d describe this. 

On the one hand, Challengers has been out for a month. On the other hand, it hits streaming today. Read our discussion below.

Hunter Harris: The first thing I need to get off my chest is where was Josh O’Connor when Taylor Swift was casting her next boyfriend?

Sivi: Should I use my government name? Does it shatter the illusion of Bald Ann? WHO knows! 

This is such a good question, oh my god… It would certainly add an interesting element to the Joe Alwyn/Alison Oliver/Josh O’Connor drama that has been flooding my timeline lately. Which seems less like actual drama and more like Swifties acting weird. But I’m already on thin ice with Swifties for saying that “The Tortured Poets Department”² needed an editor, so I won’t keep poking that bear… 

I do think Taylor is too proud to ever return to a London Boy, but Josh would’ve made an INCREDIBLE “Red”-era boyfriend. He’s sooo the type of guy you write wistful songs about.

Anyway — this question made me realize that Taylor Swift is a perfect combination of Tashi Duncan and Marnie Michaels (I am always just naturally thinking about Marnie Michaels). 

Hunter: Now that you’ve brought “The Tortured Poets Department” into the space, I must say that “Guilty As Sin” is canonically³ a song about what happened in the lobby bar of that Atlanta hotel around 2011 (?) at Haim o’clock (3 AM)... Patrick Zweig wrote “mine” on my upper thigh in that scene … 

But I wanted to talk with you about Challengers because, and I’m not sure if you read this in the subhead, but you are the Oppenheimer of talking about Challengers. When and where did you first see the movie and what was that experience?

Sivi: First of all: that means the world, thank you so much. Secondly: It’s funny that you mention Oppenheimer, because Challengers very much filled the Oppenheimer-shaped hole in my heart. After seven months of posting almost exclusively about Alden Ehrenreich’s Unnamed Diva Senate Aide (Bald Ann Dowd origin story), I was itching to move on to something new and exciting. 

I saw an early screening at a theater in Pittsburgh and had so much adrenaline coursing through my veins afterward that I had to fast-walk around the neighborhood for an hour. I experienced that Oppenheimer thing of watching a movie unfold and realizing that the men are behaving like Real Housewives, which was really special. The cast’s chemistry blew me away. Luca’s ability to capture bodies in motion made me giddy. Boner slap changed my life. And don’t even get me started on Patrick Zweig’s inseams. 

I also felt a huge sense of relief, because bisexuality was in dire need of good PR, and this movie HANDLED it!

Via.

Hunter: And the fact that I have season two of Real Housewives of New York on right now … (which I just started from season one episode one this week).

No, there is something about Challengers that really activates that DOG in me. I love movies about fucked up relationships, about bobs, about THIGH. I first saw Challengers maybe a month or six weeks before release, at a screening near Bryant Park. I stepped out of that theater feeling like I was going to float home. The music, the energy, the too much-ness of it all! Sometimes Challengers feels over-directed (not sure we needed quite so much time-jumping, and I think there’s meat left on the bone in the Art-Tashi relationship) but there is a raw simplicity to its emotions: what if there’s nothing more important to me than taking just a little more than I have right now? 

Rose dared to conjure Saltburn, a bad movie, in this sacred space; Challengers only exposes that movie’s shortcomings. Saltburn never makes a case for everything the Barry Keoghan character supposedly covets. Challengers is about desire in every direction: Art and Patrick want Tashi, Tashi wants tennis, Tashi also kind of wants Patrick, Tashi sort of wants Art, Art and Patrick want each other, and on and on…

I want to talk about Tashi for a moment, and this idea that her character is flat or undefined. What did you make of her, and if we get into the Marnie Michaels of it all then we will simply go there.

Sivi: Thigh. Thigh! THIGH!!! Every time I try to write a coherent thought about this movie, my brain goes full TV static and cuts to the shot of Josh O’Connor’s thigh skidding to a halt. I think everybody involved in capturing that moment deserves a Medal of Freedom. 

I have nothing kind to say about The Untalented Mr. Ripley… That movie spent two full hours trying to accomplish what Challengers did with one can of beer and two churros.  

I… love Tashi. I think she’s SUCH a brilliant character. And I think the idea of her being “flat” partially stems from the fact that she is immediately clear about what she wants, and that desire never wavers. Patrick and Art spend the entire movie chasing the feeling that they got playing tennis together, and that elusive desire manifests as a string of increasingly messy behaviors. Which is often more outwardly exciting to watch than one woman processing her own grief. But Tashi is the anchor of this entire story. It’s all her game! She’s the player! She’s the mastermind of the mess! Everything would crumble without her!

Also, not to pontificate about  #women in #film, but I do think that we see a lot of stories about women’s goals and desires changing over time, and the mess that comes with that sort of evolution and re-defining of the self (Marnie Michaels… Hannah Horvath… I could go on…). But Tashi’s character kinda flips that on its head --- her circumstances get more turbulent and intense, but she never loses sight of her main goal. College Tashi wanted to watch some Good Fucking Tennis, and so does 30-something Tashi with a bob and heavy eyeshadow!

Hunter: I completely agree. And something that occurred to me on my third watch was how