“Marty Supreme,” writer/director/editor Josh Safdie’s first solo feature, follows the table tennis phenomenon Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) on his obsessive quest to be a great table tennis player. Like his previous films “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” made with his brother Bennie Safdie, the film is about a single-minded con-artist who resorts to increasingly dangerous and immoral methods to achieve his goals — and the seemingly bottomless depths of depravity and desperation to which he will stoop in pursuit of it. Yet here, Safdie elevates this formula to its most epic, and most thematically nuanced, shape yet.
Despite his flaws, Marty manages to cut a far more sympathetic protagonist than past Safdie leads. The athlete envisions himself as a symbol of Jewish lineage and resilience; at one point, he calls himself “the ultimate product of Hitler’s defeat” and at another, chips off a piece of an Egyptian pyramid while saying “we built this.” That said, many of his actions are clearly unethical. He causes harm to those naive enough to trust him.
Regardless, Marty’s ambition is infectious. He pulls himself up from nothing and manages to find more money and more opportunity, time and time again. His boundless determination and hustling make him a timely modern American hero — a preposterous, period-piece avatar of the “grindset” ethos — no matter how self-centered or ultimately hollow his mission is.
He is largely unconcerned with wealth or fame, instead focused purely on table tennis greatness for its own sake. His uncompromising desire to be the best is literalized at the film’s conclusion, which forces Marty to choose between doing what it takes to keep his career alive and winning for its own sake — regardless of cost (he chooses the latter). His virulent narcissism also feels at odds with a genuine desire to do the right thing, even if the former seems to win out more often than not.
Chalamet balances Marty’s many, occasionally contradictory, dimensions perfectly. He is onscreen during nearly all of the film’s two and a half hour runtime, constantly embodying his character in a uniquely authentic and magnetic performance. It is one of the great acting achievements of the decade so far: a full-throttle star turn built on nerve, specificity and stamina. Appropriately, Chalamet attacks the role with a sports-movie earnestness and physicality of his own — an all-or-nothing commitment that matches Marty’s.
The film also benefits from an excellent cast of supporting characters, including Marty’s childhood friend-turned-lover Rachel (Odessa A’zion); cab driver Wally (Tyler Okonma), an occasional scam partner of Marty’s; mobster Ezra Mishkin (Abel Ferrara); alluring former movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow); and Kay’s husband, wealthy industrialist Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary, playing himself). Marty finds himself entangled with all of these characters in different ways, and each relationship becomes another test of what his obsession is worth. Small-time cons escalate into violent confrontations with deadly stakes that repeatedly test Marty’s unwavering resolve.
Like its eponymous protagonist, “Marty Supreme” is relentlessly in motion. Its unpredictable plot turns and breakneck pacing make it impossible to guess where the film is going, or to look away for more than a second. Despite its numerous subplots and side characters, the film manages to avoid any downtime or wheel-spinning, constantly ratcheting up the tension and stakes of its antihero’s journey right up until its profoundly emotional yet suitably ambiguous ending.
The film’s artistic choices — specifically, the accompaniment of the 1950s setting with anachronistic ’80s music and a propulsive 2020s editing style — also reflect its pertinent themes. Marty thinks only about the present and his wildly optimistic vision of the future, but never the past. Accordingly, we don’t learn why he has such a strained relationship with his mother (Fran Drescher) or how his teenage years were shaped by WWII. While other characters are explicitly impacted by the war, such as a Holocaust survivor and a businessman whose son died in combat, Marty’s history remains unspoken.
Meanwhile, standout cinematography makes each table tennis scene carry the tension and weight of a fight to the death. While composer Daniel Lopatin’s synthwave score pulses with nervous momentum, Safdie’s up-close camerawork and percussive sound design turn every rally into a minor crisis — paddle cracks and squeaking sneakers landing like gunshots.
“Marty Supreme” lives up to its grandiose title in every way, being at once stressful, funny and spectacularly entertaining in a way few movies are. It’s easily one of the best films of the year and one that deserves to be seen in a theater, ideally with as little plot foreknowledge as possible. It’s a movie that sprints forward breathlessly, but it also sticks the landing. “Marty Supreme” is as deliriously exhausting as its protagonist — and as hard to forget.
