Challengers Has A Surprising Connection To One Of The Best Movies Of 2023
You may not know Justin Kuritzkes by name, but there's a strong chance you've seen his face before. The playwright turned screenwriter behind director Luca Guadagnino's steamy tennis drama "Challengers" rocketed to internet fame thanks to his viral 2011 YouTube fantasy skit "Potion Seller." That he went from speaking to himself in silly voices while distorting his face on his computer to penning scripts for the filmmaker behind "Call Me By Your Name" is truly the type of career trajectory the rest of us can only dream about.
In another twist that might not pass the smell test if you tried to turn his story into a film, Kuritzkes is married to Celine Song, the writer and director behind only one of the best movies of 2023, "Past Lives." Even setting that aside, it's easy to spot the parallels between Song's hit and "Challengers." Both films follow the same set of characters across several years — picking up with them at different points in their lives — and involve a ... hmm, unorthodox love triangle. They also share the themes of people feeling the pull of their past and having to communicate their complicated emotions without always saying what they're thinking or feeling.
In "Past Lives," Greta Lee and Teo Yoo play two childhood friends who are separated when they're 12 years old, only to find their way back into each other's lives sporadically over the next 24 years. The characters in the movie refer to the concept of "In-Yun," a Korean term roughly equivalent to "providence" or "fate" (as they put it), and how that may or may not relate to their situation. As it turns out, actor Mike Faist got a taste of "In-Yun" himself when he encountered the "Past Lives" script years before signing on for "Challengers" instead.
Mike Faist auditioned for Past Lives before Challengers
With all due respect to the viral post on Twitter (only people who hate love call it "X") about Spider-Man's live-action girlfriends starring in tennis movies, that's not the only thing they have in common: They also star in tennis movies featuring racket-swinging white guys desperately trying to stage a comeback. In the case of "Challengers," Faist plays a fading tennis champion whose bid to end his losing streak forces him to face off against his former BFF (Josh O'Connor), a player who also dated his wife (Zendaya) — herself a one-time tennis prodigy — once upon a time. According to Faist, however, he experienced a similar twist of fate off-screen as well.
When Letterboxd editor Ella Kemp noted the similarities between "Past Lives" and "Challengers," Faist revealed that he'd actually come across Song's script for the former "right before the pandemic" and auditioned for the film but "didn't get it." All the same, his thoughts kept returning to it during the ensuing lockdowns, which led to him contacting Song's agent and asking them to send along a message, telling her he thought her screenplay was "amazing" and "I hope you actually get the chance to make this movie because it's incredible." Despite that, it wasn't until he was talking to Kuritzkes one day during production on "Challengers" — at which point the screenwriter mentioned his wife had only just finished editing her own movie — that Faist even became aware of the connection between the films.
Again, it's the type of "very meta" development (as Faist described it) that might read as contrived if it happened in a movie. But in the real world? Well, perhaps there's something to the whole idea of "In-Yun" after all.
"Challengers" is now playing in theaters.