Sorry sorry saw Challengers for the fourth time and just had to write a few things I thought down before I lose them.
This time around I was looking at the characters and noticing their major flaws. Like not actions just character flaws. Art is easy cause the movie points out one major flaw of his, confidence or lack of it. Also I'd say related to this said confidence issue is that he represses parts of himself he's not ready to face and here's where it gets interesting to me, that is one of Tashi's biggest flaws as well. See the first few times I watched it was easy to see the similarities between Patrick and Tashi but now I actually think Tashi is actually more similar to Art.
Tashi and Patrick share an outward confidence but I'd say this is actually in a lotta ways a false confidence on Tashis part. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to tennis Tashi exhudes the stuff but when it comes to personal relationships? I think she wants the power in them but this backfires on her. With Patrick it's because he won't allow her to have all the power and because their young and bullheaded the relationship collapses. Sure Art had his part in it but that fight was inevitable. When Patrick leaves the room her faces crumples, then she has a disaster during the match. Because I think when it comes to people alot of her confidence is more a false bravado so when she loses tennis on top of that? Well I think she hardens her walls. She won't let people see how vulnerable she is, she represses that part of her.
And then we come to Art. He and Tashi are so similar in the sense that Art, I believe has feelings for Patrick from the beginning. But unlike Patrick he's clearly not ready to face them. Just like he's not ready to face that he's losing his marriage. He's ready to hide in what's easy and comfortable because he's afraid of change and who he really is. I think at the start he'd rather stick with the idea what he and Pat have is just friendship because it's the safer option. I think he doesn't want to lose his marraige because it's what he knows. Art does not want to be left alone and left out, I think when he sees Tashi and Patrick getting closer he panics and messes up, just like Tashi did. Art likes to be safe and have somone else take the lead. When he was young it was Pat, in the present it's Tashi but I think there's something else Art wants that he's not even aware of himself. It's that he's okay having somone be in charge, he just also wants them to see him as an equal. But during most of the movie he can't be seen by Patrick or Tashi as one because he doesn't have the confidence to prove himself as one. And I'm not talking just on the court but in life as well.
Now during the sauna scene I think just like Tashi what's he's putting on isn't a real confidence and surety in himself. It's just a hedgehog putting up spikes because he's afraid, afraid of Pat not because he's threatened but because Patrick inspires real feelings in him and that means looking at a part of himself he's spent a better part of 13 years repressing. He lashes out because he's so unconfident in his old friendship that he can only see Patrick being their as a cruel thing not the desperate reaching out and trying to break down walls between them that it is and so.... Patrick.
Patrick I'd say ironically is the heart of the movie and the group. Patrick's major flaw isn't his ego, it's not his confidence, it's not even his immaturity. It's that he's the most open and honest character in the movie EXCEPT when it really matters. (And sorta his obliviousness🤣) Look Patrick is honest about himself in a lot of ways from the beginning, he actually IS confident in himself at the beginning. He knows he can be a dick. He is self aware. He's more honest than the other two but he doesn't trust them enough to be honest in the real ways that matter.
Patrick clearly has feelings for Art at the beginning but he also either knows or thinks that Art isn't ready to face them and so he doesn't push past those boundaries. They're all over eachother yeah but there's an unspoken thing between them. Art denies it with words but Patrick never does but he also never says it, he won't rock the boat. But then like a child who can't get what he wants he seems to treat Art almost as a toy. Now don't get me wrong not in a callous way but in way that if he can't have Art the way he wants, at least he has the control over him. He's in charge of course until he isn't. He pulled Art's pigtails one too many times and then he's gone to the other person who he loses his relationship with. Tashi.
Pat's right when he says Tashi sees herself in him and she doesn't want to face it. And he's right and that's really what both of them have with him. They see something about themselves in Patrick that they're too afraid to face and so they cut him out.
Now Pat and Tashi are interesting, like I said on paper their the similar ones. And in the a lotta ways yeah. Their both dominant forces and with no Art to balance them they eventually clash. Patrick clearly cares for Tashi but he pushes back when she asserts dominance, Tashi doesn't see him as her peer and he can't stand that. Which is ironic because he (I do believe loves Art) but he doesn't see him as his peer until the end. In fact I think that's what he realises, he begins to in the sauna and it really comes to him at match point. They are all unbalanced, they all have things they need but he needs to level the playing field. Their relationship is a mess because of power imbalance, because of fear and because of dishonesty.
Tashi and Art won't face their true selves. And Patrick hasn't pushed hard enough because he had his own fear. He was afraid of losing them and in the end that fear lost him them both anyways. When Patrick is asked somehting he doesn't want to answer he simply doesn't answer. Tashi asks about them two while Art denies Patrick just looks away. Whenever Art and Tashi are asked questions in the movie they're unsure of they answer with a question. They deflect.
"Who wouldn't be in love with you?"
"What else could I want?"
They. Won't. Face. It.
And so it's Patrick who has to make them.
Patrick realises what they need. They need to be honest. With themselves and with eachother. Cause it wasn't just Art and Tashi who were afraid all those years ago. It was him too. He was afraid he'd lose Art if he tried changing their relationship and brought the unspoken in the open. He was afraid he'd lose his power in the relationship if he backed down in his and Tashis fight so instead he ran away because it was safer. And it all went wrong anyways.
So when he's thinking about pulling the move of laying it all out in the open? It's risky. It's dangerous. It could mean he loses them both all over again for ever this time, but then again... he's already lost them before by being dishonest.
So he faces his own fear. And tell's Art the truth and Art is furious, he's shocked and then he's hurt. He's wounded. Tashi's just confused, knowing something has happened but not fully grasping what. Patrick has laid it all out.. and then? Art smiles. I think Art is relieved. Because this time? It's not like Atlanta, it's no longer a secret between Tashi and Pat because now he knows. He's included and Patrick finally shows he sees him as a peer. Not just somone he has to protect from the truth or lie to. And I think that helps Art breakthrough his own fear and face his true feelings he's buried all this time.
When that match breaks out they take eachother on as equals at last. And Tashi? She must see that they've broken free, they've finally reached that potential she saw so many years ago. And she too might just be ready to face her own self and let go of the pain she's held after losing tennis. She's witnessing something she's missed all these years and I think she probably realises she's missed the relationship between her boys as well because it was that, that helped make them be good tennis players.
I also read that due to touching the net the point may not count so it's truly inconclusive who won but I'll say it again. The match isn't what mattered. Its a game about taking the points that matter. It's game that required the confidence to risk it all and they all did. Patrick, Art, Tashi? They've won.
(All my own opinions and analysis, movie is very open to interpretation! That's why I've watched it four bloody times, I'm obsessed haha)
