*Spoiler warning for the end of Challengers.*
One of the year’s best films is finally out in cinemas as Challengers hits the big screen.
The new sports drama centres on a complex love triangle that emerges when two teenage best friends and professional junior tennis players both fall for the same prodigy.
Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) finds her career impacted, however, when she suffers an injury on the court and draws away from her lover Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and grows closer to his best friend Art Donaldson (Mike Faist).
Years later, Tashi is both a professional tennis player Art’s powerful tennis coach and his wife, while Patrick is more down on his luck, but ready for a comeback.
Events take an unpredictable turn when Art plans a wildcard tournament to get his head back in the game and soon finds himself scheduled to face off with his former friend once more.
What will this mean for Art and Tashi’s marriage and the careers of both men and the woman who came between them?
**Spoiler warning for the ending of Challengers**
Challengers ending explained: Writer Justin Kuritzkes on epic ending
In the final scenes of Challengers, the non-linear narrative reveals that Tashi had a sexual encounter with Patrick and asks him to throw the game and enable Art to win.
Tashi reasons that Patrick’s career is over and that he comes from money and will survive no matter what, while Art needs this win if he is to end his career in any satisfying way.
This comes after Art admitted to Tashi that he no longer enjoys the sport and longs to quit after a final playing season. At the same time, Patrick had also asked Tashi to start coaching him to ensure he continued to grow in a career when Art no longer had a hunger for it and he does.
The pair had their sexual encounter in a car the night before the big match and amid hurricane-like winds. This also followed much reminiscing about the friendship between Patrick and Art, which was lost when the latter went to college with Tashi and they pursued a romance and later marriage, while Patrick pursued an immediate professional career and hedonism to less success.
As the match came around, for a large portion of the playing, Patrick had Art rattled and soon took the lead but the game took a turn when Art rebounded.
During the final stretch, Patrick used a ‘tell’ of Art’s playing style that he had previously used to signal he had slept with Tashi when they were teens to once again signal to Art that he had slept with Tashi – placing the ball in the throat of the racket.
The glares and stares between the trio betrayed the flurry of emotions in play and soon, Art rebounded for a tense stand-off as they fought to the bitter end, neither backing down.
However, as match point arrived each got closer and closer to the net until Art leapt up and took the final hit but Patrick leapt up to and the two embraced over the net.
Tashi screamed in jubilation at the win as the two former friends happily embraced in a moving and cathartic final shot of the film.
Speaking about the final moments, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes said: “That was one of the first things I knew about the movie before I even started writing.”
He added: “Yeah, I had that image in my head really early on, you know, we went through a process with the ending of calibrating it exactly right. Without saying too much. But no, it feels pretty close to what I originally imagined, which I’m really happy about and it’s probably a bit surreal, as well.”
And it will certainly leave you breathless until the final moments!
Read more:
- Is Challengers based on a true story? Zendaya film explained
- Zendaya bonded with her Challengers co-stars in tennis training
Challengers is out now in cinemas.
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