CinemaWho wins the last tennis match in ‘Rivals’? Screenwriter respondsFilm directed by Luca Guadagnino ends with a tennis game between characters Art Donaldson and Patrick SweigBy Editorial Staff

Justin Kuritzkesscreenwriter of Rivals (2024), imagined the universe where the characters Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Sweig (Josh O’Connor) form a love triangle to some extent.

In the film directed by Luca GuadagninoTashi wins the attention of two young tennis players, Art and Patrick, who fall in love with her. The tennis player ends up in a relationship with Patrick, from whom she separates shortly before suffering a serious accident. As an adult, Tashi marries Art and becomes his trainer. The three experience romantic tensions again when Art and Patrick face each other in a decisive match.

The feature film ends before viewers know who won the game. That’s why, Kuritzkes was asked in an interview with the magazine People about the outcome of the match, to which he responded, “I hope that’s not a frustrating answer for you, but my thing with that is — at that point, they were all talking to each other at the end and all their cards were on the table, the kids are playing the best tennis of their lives and Tashi is playing tennis his way for the first time in years — to me, at that point I got what I wanted from the movie. And the match is irrelevant. we move forward on that.”

What they will end up doing in their lives, I don’t know. I think it’s fun for the audience to think about their own answers to that question. For me, I always like that about films, that the characters exist when we meet them and cease to exist when the film ends. Even if a film imagines someone’s entire life, from cradle to grave, it’s always this artificial container for the kind of chaos of human life and relationships.