Tashi duncan: master manipulator, lover of tennis & villain (maybe)?

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Intro:
Intro: 00:00 -01:41
Tashi's background & childhood: 01:41-03:48
Tashi and the boys dynamic: 03:48 - 06:15
Her Injury & vulnerability 06:15 - 08:43
Tashi’s true love is Tennis 08:43 - 12:43
Tashi’s clothing shows her character progression & outro 12:43-14:15

My music:

[Lisanalguib]

People might see the scene where she tells Art that she’ll leave him if he doesn’t win. But after she says this to him she whispers “is this what you need.” It made me realize that Art enjoys or maybe needs that pain to drive him. Art likes to be dominated by Patrick and Tashi. In different ways.

[gidiess]

There is no single villain, they all made unethical and cruel choices rooted in self-interest. But I have the most empathy for Tashi because she had the most to lose and she lost the most. She was by far the superior player, she had the most ambition, she was the shrewdest, she was the outsider in many ways (race and class), and she felt the weight of the responsibility of supporting her entire family with her winnings.

It's hard to imagine the grief and resentment following a career-ending injury like that.

So she focused her shrewdness and ambition and grief and resentment into the best option she had to stay in the tennis world, which is her only real love. It certainly does not excuse her abusive behavior towards Art - nothing does - but I think the movie does a good job of showing why she makes some of the choices she does. She's not a little rich boy who can rely on family money if it doesn't work out. Stakes are higher for her.

[qualinseler]

it's interesting how all three of them create this facade of being strong, dominating, sucessful, when in reality each of them is very insecure. Tashi as you mentioned is just 'somebody's wife', lost her stardom and power, Patrick has seemingly lost to Art an all fronts (didn't get to be a top player, doesn't have money, got rejected in favor of Art), and Art feels like he's a kid, pushed forward by a demanding mommy, potentially feeling that Tashi is slipping away into Patrick's arms.

[claireindigo]

Heavy on the “ART KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING” Tashi has never pretended to anything but tennis hungry so I don’t know why people keep acting as if Art wasn’t a willing victim.

[Lisanalguib]

Okay I am commenting a lot but one thing I remember is when she is playing in the game where she got injured she was in her head and not engaging in the relationship with tennis and the other player (Pepperdine girl). She was playing against a player who wasn't there (Patrick). She was cheating on tennis with Patrick while playing in that game. Because she was not mentally connecting to tennis. So after her injury not only is she searching and longing for that feeling in tennis. She wants to get back into the relationship with tennis as an apology to tennis because she failed to connect with it during that detrimental game. Its like tennis has left her (as a romantic partner) because she ignored and neglected it in that game. So her yearning is her wanting to apologize and gain back that romantic relationship she once had with tennis. So when Art loses love for it, she feels like tennis is breaking up with her again saying that she is not enough and it double hurts because it feels like Art is doing the same to her as well because she does love him to some degree.

[caitlina]

Everything kinda clicked when we got that flashback scene of Tashi and Art in Applebees when he asks her to be his coach. He wants that guidance and knows how talented she is. It was what they both wanted at the start, but by the end he wants more than she signed up to give. Loved her character so much and have so much more analyze now with this

[harmoniousdisciple]

i love that you used mary’s theme; i love this song so much. i think tashi is in perpetual survival mode. all of what she does after her knee injury is about staying afloat

[anna]

I never saw Tashi as a master manipulator, because she is so so transperant with what she wants and what she is.
She is obsessed with Tennis. That's the only thing she cares about. She never hides that. She doesn't even want to hide it, she can't.
So if you go for a women whos only thought in her head is: tennistennistennis. You get what you get.

[dialecticsjunkie]

Messy? Yes. Toxic, even. But not a villain -- she doesn't manipulate anyone who doesn't already *want* it deep down.

[mnracn]

One random thought I had for some time in regards to class: In a way Art & Patrick as people from a higher class background with an established bond created a connection that Tashi could not really "overcome" even through all the hustling and mindgames...In the end they play, she doesnt, they embrace each other, not her. Even her adapting that look and lifestyle, ends up being an imitation of what the two boys had from the get go hence them not even being that passionate about it, which is baffeling to Tashi. This might be a flawed and kinda floppy look at the narrative in regards to class(-ism), but she essentialy did everything correct (in regards to her goal): Training the hardest, "networking" and using the boys in ways that benefit her, but in the end she really only loses.Through all the effort of breaking into this world, she is still an "other", not quite the same. I wonder what the director truly had in mind, about the queer themes as well.

[Lisanalguib]

Unfortunately Art did not need to do any meddling. Patrick and Tashi were going to break up regardless because of his lack of ambition and she was going to shift to Art anyway. There is a universe where Art didn’t meddle and she eventually breaks up with Patrick and gets with Art and continues her tennis career. I think she was physically attracted to Patrick but she was mentally attracted to Art because in the beginning he loved and saw tennis how she did based on the beach scene and the questions he tried to ask her.

[GirlTheCity]

I believe Tashi had two siren moments.

1) The beginning at the beach with the boys with long hair bold blue color dress

2) With her husband in the muted 💎 jewel toned blue night gown where she does her ultimatum

Blue represents various meanings

I don’t think this movie has a villain per se, but flawed lovers instead

There are three four relationships going on

1) The love for competition in tennis
2) The boys and the homewrecker
3) Tashi with both men
4) A true thruple couple

It isn’t till the end when she makes her decision to do what she can to throw the match. That she realizes she loves her husband and daughter and wants to fight for her family.

The end is Tashi isn’t in control but at the moment a band aid is put on their issues and gives them a chance to reconcile meanwhile getting their love for the sport back under an edm soundtrack.

IMO Tashi status stands at: It’s complicated 😂

[periodwizard]

Ohgosh, that close up to her hands in the last scene, she's wearing all the people she loves, gold/silver for fire/ice, and her kid's bracelet. I think her shift towards muted colors has a lot to do with her being a businesswoman and rich (quiet luxury).

Anyways, I love Tashi. I support women's wrongs.

[CaraMarie]

I respect her hustle for stability. Anyone that grows up poor knows the feeling of only having one shot at success. The room for failure is slim to none. I dont view Tashi as a villain but that makes her worst in my view. She's a real person whom we can run into in our day to day life. And the fact that her injury and what that meant for her life makes her believe she has the right to walk over people. And its not her being in a drawing room contemplating her how she is going to mess people over. No. To her, that's just normal behavior that don't trigger any alarm bells in her head as it would for the majority of people.
And one last point that I want to add because i keep hearing about how Art signed up for it so he cant complain about the clear domestic abuse (and thats the term for it, y'all) he is experiencing. Yes, Art knew she was ambitious and dominant. Thats probably why he was attracted to her to begin with. He saw in her what he lacked and naturally sought to balance himself out. Like take an honest look at yourself and your chosen friends and I assure you, those people are similar to you but also have something you don't. He also knew of her dedication to tennis and that by adding her to her coaching staff, she was going to push him which could have, and did, move him up in the rankings. From his perspective, Tashi was 100 percent the ideal person for him. But to say that that "he knew what he signed up for" a decade earlier when a lot of his motivation was just to get the girl of his dreams feels disgusting to me. And thats because its giving the blame the victim vibe. And i know its hard to look at that man and believe he is a victim of anything. But no one should be blame for not being able to see the future. I don't think in his wildest dreams Art, or really anyone that find themselves in a similar position, could have predicted that the person he loves and married was going to deal him such a card. So people saying "he knew what he signed up for" need to show me the documents he signed stipulating thats what was in the cards because am not buying it. Ive dated ambitious man with dominant personalities, are you saying if any of those man had kicked my a-- or emotionally abused me that I should have known better because it was to be expected? Like do you realize we would all be that guy from Final Destination if we went about life thinking everyone we meet are going to cause us such distress a decade later.

[Lisanalguib]

She’s not the best person but with every watch I couldn’t hate her.

[ranaacevikmen]

Tennis is just the external thing she attached herself to. Like you said, she wants stability/ security. Tennis represents that. It is also a huge part of her identity/ sense of self and, therefore, self-worth. She has attached so much internally to this external thing (that she loves and use to thrive off of ) that everything she does with Art and Patrick is ultimately a game of survival and ego retention.

[lial]

Honestly, I think the movie is extremely heavy on the fact that Art and Patrick have definitely have a sexual relationship of some sort and stashing enjoys bringing that out especially in the context of tennis and desire and sex melting into one end game. Something Tashi is very aware of (she called tennis a relationship)

[sabrinaf]

I like your take on Tashi's colors throughout the film. I'll raise another point, looking at all three leads: the change in saturation also marks the shift from adolescence to adulthood. Patrick is seen in greys first, as he enters the professional tennis circuit ("adulthood" in the film) at eighteen. Art is seen in primarily navies neutrals by 23, as he is playing professionally at that point, and Tashi only shifts to neutral colors when she becomes Art's coach.

[anna]

The marketing really played Tashi up as a female manipulator, but really she is not that more manipulative then the guys.

I'm thinking of the time Art pitted Patrick and Tashi against each other.

[f.d.]

I honestly feel kind of bad for Tashi, but can't bring myself to totally hate Art which shows that his manipulation worked well