Marty Supreme: Chalamet Shines as a Driven, Abrasive Ping Pong Prodigy in '50s New York
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A
By turns exhilarating and exhausting, Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is a whirlwind race of a movie anchored by another brilliant all-in performance by Timothée Chalamet.
It’s New York, 1952, the Lower East Side. Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a 23-year-old Jewish kid with unstoppable confidence, driven by massive ambition to become the greatest table tennis player in the world. He is talented, and has already achieved at the international level.
But at home? Outside the table tennis community, no one cares about his sport or his drive to be world champion. In a working-class world, Marty’s friends and family don’t get it. The best he’s got is his coach Wally (Tyler Okonma, aka Tyler the Creator in a breakout role), and his friend Dion (Luke Manley), who sees a marketing opportunity in an orange ping pong ball.
Marty lives seemingly nowhere. He’s moving, moving. moving. Practicing, going hard, shamelessly trying to raise money to get him to the international competitions.
It’s a performance that requires heavy lifting from Chalamet. His Marty is brash and seemingly incapable of filtering his thoughts. He crosses lines constantly, leading him to do things like destroy his relationship with the head of the international table tennis federation (admittedly an arrogant effete), say outlandish and offensive things to reporters and proposition a once famous actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is not only much older, but is married to a rich, arrogant businessman (a very impressive acting debut by Kevin O'Leary, sigh).
What makes Marty run? The film doesn’t stop for a second to suggest an answer, nor does Marty examine his own life. He’s all forward motion, as he navigates back and forth, hustling for money, getting into trouble, getting out of trouble, travelling between Manhattan and Europe and then Japan, for an underdog battle against the world champion Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi).
Maybe the biggest clue we’re given is his name. Marty Mauser. Is he a mighty mouse? Or just a mouse. Without this championship dream, he's just another kid on the Lower East Side.
Credit Chalamet for playing a character this loud, moving this fast, and yet giving us a bigger picture. He never panders. He's not trying to soften Marty to win us over. And so, those moments where we see what else is in him are quick, but they give him dimension, and make him more intriguing. Suddenly he’s worth rooting for.
Josh Safdie directs Marty Supreme, which he co-wrote and co-edited with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein. (This is the first feature that Josh has directed without his brother Benny Safdie, who also made a sports themed movie this year, the ironically much quieter The Smashing Machine).
Fast paced, relentless character driven films have been a Safdie speciality, as we’ve seen in 2019’s Uncut Gems or 2017’s Good Time. They’re movies with somewhat off-putting lead characters and plots that move at a supersonic pace with many seeming dead ends.
Marty Supreme is in that vein. It’s a meticulously plotted film that starts at a trot and moves at a full gallop from beginning to end. The film is drenched in atmosphere, giving us a feeling of ‘50s working class New York in all its claustrophobic glory.
Safdie is detail oriented. The film looks great. And in this sprint of a movie, Safdie takes delight with his cast. Not only has he pulled together a fantastic principal cast, but this may be the film with the best ‘stunt’ casting of the year - Kevin O'Leary, Penn Jillette, Sandra Bernhard, Abel Ferrara, David Mamet and Isaac Mizrahi among them.
Safdie also made some interesting musical choices. The ‘50s-set story uses ‘80s songs. It starts and ends with Tears For Fears. And how many directors would have chosen the 1980s Korgis song Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime?
A film with a historical basis, Marty Supreme was inspired by a biography written by Marty Reisman, who was a New York Jewish table tennis prodigy at a time when there was an underground competitive scene in the city.
But Marty Supreme isn’t an attempt to tell his story. This is a character study of a man running for his life, running to be something. And when the film finally brings Marty to a stop, what surfaces in him is more complex than meets the eye.
That part is up to the viewer to interpret. But it's been quite a ride.
Marty Supreme. Directed by Josh Safdie, written by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. Stars Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin O’Leary, Odessa A’zion. In theatres, Thursday, December 25.