Challengers: More than a game of tennis

Taiyler Stanfield and Melanie Satowiak • May 22, 2024

“Challengers,” directed by Luca Guadagnino, has grossed over 68 million dollars worldwide, surpassing Guadagnino’s previous hit movie “Call Me By Your Name.”

The recently released “Challengers” starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist is one for the books. Director Luca Guadagnino creates a cinematic masterpiece about tennis and tension within a wounded love triangle filled with deeper meaning, symbolism and unseen events seemingly at every turn.
Zendaya, who plays Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy-turned-coach, depicts the internal conflicts between love and career. After suffering a career-ending accident, Tashi begins her rehabilitation and, upon realizing that she will never play again, begins to live vicariously through her husband Art who has become a world-famous tennis champion. However, Tashi and Art’s relationship becomes strained after he begins to lose confidence in his playing. It doesn’t help when they both discover that the next challenger Art is competing against is his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. A power struggle ensues on the court as tensions and emotions rise on every side.

About the Contributors

Taiyler Stanfield, Editor In Chief

Taiyler Stanfield joined Uncaged halfway through her junior year and is an Editor-in-Chief this year. When she’s not yelling at students to do their work or editing articles for hours at a time, she enjoys spending quality time with her family. After graduating, Taiyler plans to quit her full-time job Tokyo-drifting on the way to school to attend Eastern Michigan University, where she will pursue a degree in Young Adult Literature to become an editor for a publishing company. If all hope is lost, Taiyler will instead pursue screenwriting in hopes that one day she will make the big bucks and win an Oscar for the blood, sweat, and tears she shed. You will occasionally hear Taiyler desiring to have at least five cats, as she is dangerously obsessed with them. Because of this obsession, it is with 100% certainty that she will become the neighborhood's crazy cat lady.

Melanie Satowiak, Reporter

Beginning her short-lived career as a journalist, Melanie Satkowiak joined Uncaged Student News as a senior this year. Melanie is on-staff as a reporter and when she’s not consumed by her job, schoolwork, and family responsibilities, she enjoys living her life to its fullest potential. Melanie loves to travel, get high on adrenaline, and surround herself with wonderful people. She prefers delving into other worlds in the pages of books and serenading her ears with the angelic voices of her favorite artists rather than contemplating the meaning of life. Melanie is a recent inductee to NHS and is the Student Representative on the Stockbridge School Board. She loves being involved in her community and can’t wait to talk the ears off of the people she’ll meet after high school.