well damn...

@pscentral event 29: warm & cool

CHALLENGERS (2024), dir. Luca Guadagnino.

And when will we finally talk about Tashi.

Tashi— who was a tennis superstar before she could even legally drink, who is understood to have grown up poor and without resources or opportunities aside from what she fought for with the blood, sweat, tears and an INSANE talent that she cultivated for years?

Tashi— who was fucking good and fucking knew it, not cocky enough to believe a match was won before it was over but still had the confidence to know she was bringing everything to the match.

Tashi— who wanted to fuck around and have fun, who saw potential between Art and Patrick because of her potential, fully capable and knowing exactly what she wants, knew already at eighteen of how important it was to play the long game in her life so that her only skill wasn’t just with a ball and a racket.

Tashi— who liked Patrick and liked the game, not between the boys but the game itself, who wanted a partner that had that drive and passion and energy for the same thing that brought them together.

Tashi— who lost everything in an instant, everything that she had spent her entire life working towards for what was a horrible and unfortunate accident.

Tashi— who casually joked years later with Art that “she wasn’t going to kill herself or anything” with the sardonic tone of someone who very clearly fucking considered it, brushing it off and pushing forward because Tashi Duncan might not have been able to recover her tennis but she could still be in it.

Tashi— who was no less determined but more focused, who saw the potential of Art not just as a player but as a person, who had told Patrick years before that his game had improved despite how much Patrick had dismissed it.

Tashi— a fiancée, a moment not of weakness but of a choice, maybe to recapture the intensity of her own feelings or maybe a low point at the reminder of Mueller who had no other competition because that competitor should’ve been her.

Tashi— a wife and a mother who tells Patrick to throw the game, for Art and for her love for him, who replies in complete seriousness when Patrick asks if she’ll fuck him for his acceptance “if that’s what it takes.”

Tashi— who is the actual fucking heart of this movie— and as this article put so perfectly, is the thesis of everything, the one person we see right at the end.

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