What is value and what is winning? Challengers does not entirely commodify the body, but asks us to view the body and its beauty as a tool- something like “winnification”. The inherit aesthetic of the Greek ideal- a body moving through space- still lingers (the shots on male musculature or the litheness of Tashi attest to this) but these are secondary to the raison d’être of the body- performance. For this reason, this movie is deeply post-modern in outlook- the conception of the body is in between the innocence, purity, and savageness of an ideal and a total appropriation of the body to the forces of a system (capitalism, postmodernism, etc). The actors themselves find themselves claiming the title, status, of object, while feeling an intangible malaise at their place within the system. This is not just from the individual to the system (as in the modern mode), but in proper post modern fashion- every level of existence and relation is subjugated to this process of self-objectification: drawing on the principles of so above, so below (“We are always talking about tennis”). Art and Patrick desire to be the slaves of Tashi, all three of them submit to be the slaves of tennis, and all are especially beholden, enthralled, by the pursuit of the body ideal. 

Sex, in the conception (the mental universe) of Challengers, is not the savage (pre-modern) relation or dominance of one body upon another, or the union of two minds in the classical sense, but an over-proliferation set of interlocking competitions- a gordian knot of struggle. “We are always talking about Tennis.” Furthermore, the nature of desire in this becomes so blurry as the strongest and fittest beings rise from the masses to attempt to become one (singular, unified, pure body moving through space). The two (Patrick and Art) desire the one (Tashi). As the Tennis ball spins, the pyramid (the system of desire between the three characters) rotates in space as the amorous winners struggle to stay on top. Patrick and Art desire each other, led (dominated) by Tashi. Patrick and Tashi desire each other in a quest to mentally dominate Art. Art and Tashi desire each other to form a bond of connection and stability (family, children, tennis coaching) to win the long game over Patrick. Sex in this movie is not the producer of love, of relation / linkage, but a game of dominance. Every character wants to reach the ideal form of themselves and “win,” as a tennis player, seductor, husband. 

The visual language in this film was at times deeply, blaringly obvious and at times quite subtle and misleading. Tension is created through shots dividing space into threes with subtle arrangements of color to individualize each character. But there is not one dominant color for each character- as the game of love and tennis ebbs and flows in the dominant actor, colors and feelings shift and flow between the three (who is fire? Who is ice?) Desire is heightened and seen on the screen by posture, but relief or catharsis rarely comes completely- besides, the point of the desire is so removed from its physical consummation that a graphic portrayal of it would mislead the viewer into post-orgasmic relief. Also, the directions of desire are often misleading and slippery, pausing before their fulfillment or diverting in unexpected directions. This is because the desire is a consequence of the greater ideal of physical perfection (a body moving through space). The characters stay hungry in pursuit of the ideal. 

The victor, then, of Challengers is the ideal itself. Despite the confusion of the post-modern world that overlaps pure ideas with many systems and paths (sexual desire, financial gain, individuation) the physical ideal of the athlete (the body moving through space) is vindicated. Tashi reaches orgasm (or its psychological equivalent, we are always talking about tennis) in the final scene because the ideal of physicality, grace, and strength is at its closest to being realized. She desired to be its instigator, the mother of its production, (evidence: shots of her with legs spread desiring to provoke a dominant response in the boys by the sensuality of her body, thus dominating them into reproduction) but in fact she is as a vestigial virgin to the flame of the ideal, a valkyrie carrying dead warriors to Valhalla, wingèd Nike delivering. Despite the proliferation of systems, merchandise, images, and desire, they are slaves to the dominant ideal, and want to be burned by its white flames of pure white and pure light.  

Freud and Pagila stay winning.