On June 20, 2022, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor sat at the edge of a motel bed on either side of Zendaya, kissing, licking and biting her neck. As Art and Patrick, their respective “Challengers” characters, they were desperate for more of Tashi, played by Zendaya, and desperate to mask their desperation.
Zendaya’s mind was elsewhere. “The only reason I really remember is because Beyoncé came out with ‘Break My Soul’ that day,” she said. “I was having a great day, like, ‘Y’all. Beyoncé’s single just dropped.’ That’s what I was focused on, to be honest.”
“We lost Zendaya for like a week,” O’Connor recalls. “She was on set, normal, chatting with us. Then one day Beyoncé released something. They called ‘cut,’ and she immediately had headphones in. She was completely lost to the world.”
Tashi, too, is often lost to the world. Her unavailability — bordering on heartlessness — sets the stakes for “Challengers.” It’s certainly what makes the film so sexy, as Art and Patrick take turns peacocking for her attention. And when they can’t have it, they resort to messing with each other.
The release of “Challengers” has been packed with so many contradictions, it’s no wonder no one knows what’s happening in the movie business anymore. This R-rated arthouse movie is being released wide domestically in theaters by a streamer (Amazon) that inherited the project in an $8.5 billion acquisition of a traditional studio (MGM).
Wait, there’s more: “Challengers,” directed by Luca Guadagnino, was supposed to be a fall awards movie — but saw its release date snuffed out by the actors strike. (If Zendaya can’t walk the carpet at the Venice Film Festival, which “Challengers” was meant to open, then what’s the point?) And somehow, since Warner Bros. is responsible for putting the movie in theaters overseas, “Challengers” has been showered with the global rollout usually reserved for Marvel movies, with splashy premieres in Sydney, London, Rome, Paris and L.A.
Is the movie any good? Hell, yes. But as Zendaya has been traversing the globe putting on her own fashion show, we’ve all been most mesmerized by her tennis couture, in looks that bring to mind Carrie Bradshaw, if she’d ever picked up a racket. At the London premiere, Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach pulled a Vivienne Westwood dress from 1994 with a miniskirt punctuated by feathers that resembled “a fluffy white bunny tail,” reported Bustle. Method acting has entered the real-world runway of film promotion, with BuzzFeed calling Zendaya’s fashion choices “method dressing.” But will all of this delayed hustle lead to box office success when “Challengers” opens in theaters on April 26? The chair umpire is still out on that one.
“Challengers” introduces Tashi Duncan as a teenage tennis prodigy who is lusted after by the showy Patrick Zweig and his shy best friend Art Donaldson, lesser players than Tashi but still talented. As she’s about to enroll at Stanford, Tashi hooks up with Patrick; she later marries Art. When Patrick reenters the couple’s lives 13 years later, Tashi must reckon with the choices she’s made. So must the guys.
“Challengers” presents the rarest, most satisfying species of love triangle: “Luca felt it was very important that, in any love triangle, all the corners touch,” says first-time screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, “and I quickly realized he meant it literally.” Guadagnino encouraged Kuritzkes to write the steamy scene where Patrick and Art start out kissing Tashi but somehow end up in a makeout session of their own.
In the same way the release of “Challengers” has been so scattered, so have the…
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