Challengers with Zendaya: Movie ending explained by cast members

Warning – The following article contains spoilers for The Challengers, as it particularly discusses its ending. So please go ahead if you haven’t seen Luca Guadagnino’s film that hit our screens on April 24th.

Open-ended offers are nothing new for Luca Guadagnino. You just have to (re)watch his Suspiria remake or the long and heartbreaking final shot of Call Me By Your Name to be convinced. Two feature films that the Challengers, albeit more popular, join on this level and leave the audience in suspense as to the outcome of the plot.

How does Challengers end?

Filled with flashbacks, the second tier tournament finals between Art (Mike Feist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) come to a close. As it would have been very easy for either of the two to break the other 6-0 6-0, it came down to a final set tie-break, a deciding game in which the winner would win the match. And undoubtedly Tashi’s (Zendaya) heart, which they’ve been chasing since the beginning of the story.

Except we never get to see match point as the Challengers stop early. In this exchange, in which Artie (finally) lets go of his punches, Patrick just lets him know, in a gesture seen earlier in the film, that he slept with Tashi the day before. The duo goes to the net for as much tension as the strings of their rackets, becoming increasingly brutal and spectacular, well-accentuated by music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

And which ends with Artie flying over the net for a smash that Patrick doesn’t even try to counter. No, he just goes to hug his former best friend and adversary of the day, who jumps out of his chair to applaud. crying (“Come here !”) that echoes both his past on the courts as much as it is an encouragement to measure the potential of the two people in his life.

who won then

At the sporting level, no one and not even at this stage is important. For the rest, everyone emerges from this muscular exchange as a winner: Art regains his confidence (and rediscovers his taste for tennis?), Patrick rediscovers the joy of playing with his best friend, and Clap reminisces about his glory hours through his two girlfriends.

“They finally found each other”details Josh O’ConnorEntertainment Weekly. “They’re all looking for a way to get there and they’ve gone horribly wrong along the way. A way to satisfy that need, that hunger they have for each other. They all try to find their way in different ways. .”

“For Art, maybe it’s about getting away from tennis with his family, reconnecting with his wife. For Tashi, it’s about finding the satisfaction in tennis that he lost when his career ended, and for Patrick, it’s also related to the feeling he had when he played Art. When he was younger, or when he was playing Tashi at the time He was watching.”

I needed this moment for the audience to understand how the most important thing was not to defeat the other, but to be together again

“In the end, even though they did it in the dirtiest way, Patrick realizes that he managed to get them both there, forgets everyone in the stadium and says to himself: “I know exactly how to get it to a point that will satisfy him. Me and him, let’s go.” Which brings us to this small gesture that the viewer feels when he needs a service forever.

A scene that not only echoes the exercise that happened earlier. But also the one he shares with the three of them in a hotel room, and which many promotional images insisted on. “They’ve been searching for thirteen years for the opportunity to return to that hotel room to reconnect with those moments of nascent desire and innocence.”Luca Guadagnino adds.

“At the same time, they feel comfortable with each other, as they were then. Throughout their story, this is what they are trying to do. And in the end, while the rivalry is at the highest level, the triangle finds itself in the same. In office, but on the court.” Which therefore explains why the director is uninterested in the outcome of the match on a sporting level. Or who will win the heart of applause.

“I needed this very visually heightened, very immersive moment for the audience to understand how the most important thing was not to defeat the other person, but to be together again.” And from there everyone is free to imagine what happens next.