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The Coiled Ferocity of Zendaya
Challengers is the ultimate example to date of what has become a distinctively Zendaya screen energy.
Francis Coppola’s gangster epic ends with ascendant Mafia don Michael Corleone shutting a door in the face of his wife, Kay, played by Diane Keaton, visually declaring that this is a world of men over which women hold no sway. It combines the in-your-face physical and emotional ferocity of an R-rated sports drama like Raging Bull or Warrior with an old-fashioned plot about two guys obsessed with the same girl that’s straight out of a Turner Classic Movies staple like The Philadelphia Story or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In the scene where all three make out with each other, for instance, you could read Tashi’s confidence and avidity as an “older than she seems,” almost femme fatale-type presentation; or as that of a prodigy who grew up in public around mostly adults and felt the need to pretend she always was one; or as the manifestation of experiences (perhaps damage) we don’t know about yet; or a Joker-like force who’s just looking to sow chaos.
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