You are terrible Muriel ! @muyeye - Tumblr Blog

🪻💋

THE duo of all time!!!!

Watched Challengers (2024) and the take away is that Tashi needed both Art and Patrick to feel the exhilaration that Tennis gave her. Just like the three of them needed one another too. Their dynamic is so complex because their love for each other is selfish and comes with a prize.

Tashi was just living vicariously through them because she lost the ability to play tennis so soon in her life. She liked the safety she could get from Art and how she was able to control him. She liked the impulsive passion she could get from Patrick but they would’ve never worked because she’s too much of a narcissism to be with him. And at the end of the day, she was pissed because neither of them satisfied the expectations she set for herself and her tennis dreams. Patrick was a natural talent but a slacker and didn’t take tennis that seriously. Art was hard working but not much of a natural and lacked confidence. And not matter how much he excelled, it was never enough for what she wanted for herself. She ends up having to coach him at a sport that she could easily surpass both of them at. Tashi doesn’t teach because she can’t. She could. And it’s hurtful having to never have this void and need filled.

And I also don’t share the idea that Tashi didn’t love Art. She does and so did Patrick. But Art just loved her so much more. But she doesn’t strike me as a woman that would be miserable and marry someone if she didn’t fully want to. Let along commit to motherhood. But Tashi’s true love will always be Tennis. She’s in love with tennis. Art was willing to retire for Tashi and their family and she’ll never do that for him. She would trade both Art and Patrick for a chance to be able to play Tennis again.

That’s why at the end of the movie it doesn’t matter who won the game. It matters that Tashi was able to finally experience a good tennis match. And I think her yelling is that she finally found that satisfaction she’s been looking for.

muyeye

YES!!! The final part of the match is not only the climax of the story but the climax of their relation, because at the end of the day what Tashi really wanted was to see a good match, and just like in their teen years on the hotel room scene, she took pleasure from being entertained but also in a way conducting the scene.

She really did live vicariously through Art, which is why she resents him so much, but also why he stayed playing as long as he did, because he was aware that foremost came tennis, and it is something that Tashi was until certain point aware enough to recognize as messed up, in the bedroom scene where she and Art discuss what comes after the match you can see the guilt with which she agrees that she'll leave once Art retires. As much as Tashi wanted to seem like this cold and calculating person she really was still a teenager that acted upon her whims, just like Patrick said, but unlike him she was not willing to externally acknowledge this faults, even when aware of them to a certain level.

That's why as much as I would have loved for a throuple it was not really meant to happen, because the characters themselves are too obsessive, too self-centered (even Art on all his doormat glory), and too trill seeking for a real relationship, never mature enough for the vulnerability it required; they liked each other and like what they had because it was this side of messed up, two steps away from becoming codependent.