GODDAMMIT, ZENDAYA
more horny malicious intense black girls on screen please
Everyone kept telling me I needed to see Challengers and I didn’t listen. I thought it was about tennis. Tennis and I have nothing to do with each other so, for weeks, I didn’t see it. And then I saw it. Well, first I saw the trailer: Zendaya perched on a motel bed in little cute sweat shorts, fresh-faced, skin glistening, between two guys (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor). She proceeds to make out with them both before gently bullying them into making out with each other and, as soon as things heat up, abruptly gets up to leave. This is Cinema. When I saw this scene in the trailer I thought, why didn’t anyone tell me she was making out with two guys!!!! If you want me to see a movie, tell me there’s a love triangle with a Black woman at the center. Tell me Zendaya has these little white boys wrapped around her french-manicured finger. Tell me her ambition makes her ugly while still being outwardly hot because unlike tennis, THIS has everything to do with me.
This is not a movie review, not entirely. I say this to say I get that it’s hard to care about something you haven’t seen so I hope this feels like an entryway anyone can pass through whether you’ve seen it or not. I do want to talk about the film’s delicious visuals, about jumbled desire, and why, in a society where monogamy has everyone in a chokehold, we’re all still chasing the love triangle.
But first, a bite-sized synopsis: Tashi is a young, beautiful tennis prodigy about to leave for Stanford when she meets friends and tennis mates Patrick and Art at a party. Art is a hot, sweet, pitiful man who we understand immediately wants to be dominated. Patrick is a hot, kind-of-dirty, future failure who refuses Tashi’s domination. This is the past timeline. Tashi dates Patrick. Then she marries Art. In the present day timeline, they’re in their thirties. After being estranged for years, Art and Patrick finally meet again on the tennis court with Tashi puppeteering behind the scenes. Art is a big shot in decline, Patrick is sleeping in his car, and Tashi is living vicariously through them after an injury ends her career.
Let’s pick up on the scene that started it all: the three of them making out. It is exactly what you want it to be—sloppy, primal, desperate. Just as your pulse picks up, in a move that rips your heart out and shoves it into your mouth, Zendaya pushes the boys aside and says she has to go. But before she goes, she strikes a deal with them: whoever wins tomorrow’s match gets her number. This is what we call stakes. When they try to elicit from her who she wants to win, she says, “I just want to see some good fucking tennis.” Touché, Zendaya. I just want to see some good fucking cinema. Challengers is that.
Cut to these men on the court the next day fighting for their fucking lives. Mike Faist's pale ankles look like they might give in at any moment but Zendaya’s number hangs in the balance so who cares if he’ll ever walk again? My friend and I sat on his sofa screaming at Mike Faist: “Break that back for us, daddy!!!” This is what desire is about—at its best and worst—wanting something so hard it hurts you. This tennis match is a fight for their lives because whoever Tashi chooses sends the three of them down a path from which they can never return.
Back to my friend. He’s a screenwriter and has better language for film than I do. We were talking about the director of the movie, Luca Guadagnino and he said something that felt so true: “Luca is such a sensual director.” Guadagnino also directed Call Me By Your Name, a movie I devoured. I have this visceral memory of Timothée Chalamet scrambling up Armie Hammer like a tree, all limbs, again this image of immense physicality, of animal desperation. In Challengers, there's a shot where the camera is angled underneath Mike Faist on the court and he is literally dripping sweat onto the camera lens and therefore onto us. In an early match, when Zendaya wins she cries, “COME ON!!!” Later, Mike Faist tells her, “You made this sound when you won. I’ve never heard a sound like that.”
There are people who aren’t going to like Zendaya’s character. Boohoo. She’s uncomfortably intense, wildly ambitious, coolly manipulative and may or may not love her husband. Oh, and she cheats on him with Patrick multiple times.
One of my favorite scenes is the night before the final years-in-the-making match between Art and Patrick. Zendaya flees her fancy hotel while Art is sleeping beside their daughter and hops into Patrick’s beat-up car. She says, “I’m not here to fuck you.” Translation: that’s not the only reason she’s here. She wants him to lose to Art tomorrow. Her and Patrick shout in each other’s faces while he drives around like a maniac in what appears to be a tornado. Trees are bending in the wind, trash is blown up in the air with apocalyptic drama. Outside, Zendaya stands in a deserted parking lot, hair sweeping across her forehead and, in slow motion, spits in Patrick's face. And then they make out. My exact words were: “What the fuck, she just spit in this man’s face and now they’re having sex in the back of his car?” Challengers is a power reversal revenge fantasy. Right before this, Zendaya barks at Patrick, “Haven’t I been taking care of my little white boys?” Yes, Zendaya. Yes, you have.
I’m working on a novel1 with a love triangle at its center, and I think we return to this trope because what’s more serious, more painful, than having to choose between people we love? Challengers doesn’t exactly explore this particular pain, but what I appreciate about its love triangle is that both love interests are put to use. You have a lot of false love triangles out there ie. a third party is introduced just to add tension, but we already know who the main character is choosing and therefore all that juicy tension is drained. In a culture where monogamy is queen, I think some storytellers fear audiences won’t know what to do with the prospect of multiple serious love interests, that, emotionally, it asks too much of us. Who should we be rooting for, after all, when both are compelling choices? What to do when you have Patrick who may be broke but who will also blow your back out in his dirty car, and Art, a loving husband and father who, at the end of the night, just wants you to hold him while he cries?
Here’s where I say something about how rarely you see Black women in roles like this, which is true, but I’ve suddenly realized I don’t feel like talking about that. Writing is an act of self-discovery isn’t it? I was going to say something about why this character is an important mirror for me, but what I find more interesting is that she was written by a white man. There are aspects of her that left me a bit wanting. We know Tashi cares about tennis more than anything, but it’s never clear who she loves: if she loves both Art and Patrick, or just one of them, or if she’s just using them. This murkiness is less about Zendaya’s performance and more, I think, about how the character is written. This is something I’ve noticed in Black female characters on screen who are prickly and ambitious and sexually free. The story at times over-relies on their biting quips (“You’d have a better shot with a gun in your mouth”), forgetting that this bite doesn’t mean they’re incapable of moments of tenderness or vulnerability even if we must earn them. The night before the film’s final match, she tells Art, “If you lose tomorrow, I'm going to leave you.” Does she mean it? I don’t know.
And, well, it doesn’t really matter because Art wins.
The final scene is maybe the best scene in the entire film. Patrick is cocky from having slept with Tashi the night before behind Art’s back, but this high sits alongside the humiliation of having agreed to lose even though he needs this win more than anyone. We don’t know if he’s actually going to do it. Earlier in the film, Patrick and Art come up with a silent signal that lets Art know Patrick has slept with Tashi. At the time, it’s silly and stupid. But Patrick makes the signal on the court and Art understands: his former friend, current rival, fucked his wife. And now the game truly begins. What is Art going to do? Is he going to attack Patrick? Storm off the court? What he does is he plays his little heart out. But then something weird happens. Art smiles. Patrick smiles back. Something has been mended between them in this small moment. They are no longer hitting a ball back and forth. They are playing tennis. The camera angles go nuts. We move with the ball and it gives this sensation that nothing is stable or set or stone, any decision can unpin past ones, everything rides on a single moment, and this is the essence of the entire film.
Tashi, who had lost interest, is now on the edge of her seat, tracking every blow. In the final shot, Art leaps into the air preparing to slam his racket against the ball. He looks like he’s falling. Surely, he will fall right onto the net. Or onto Patrick. He’s closer than he should be. My friend said, “Luca is edging us.” Art is so close. We’re so close. And then, in a satisfying climax, Art sends the ball crashing over the net in a winning shot, collapsing into Patrick’s arms, sweaty and smiling. But in this threesome, did you forget? Zendaya gets the final word. As the men hug, she clenches her fists, shaking, and screams, “COME ON!!!!!!!”
My sentiments exactly. Come the fuck on.
Zendaya, please star in the film adaptation of my novel
I was fanning myself that entire movie LOL