Original caricature by Jeff York of Timothee Chalamet in MARTY SUPREME (copyright 2025).
The new comedy MARTY SUPREME ostensibly is a sports film about a fictional 1950s table tennis star named Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) and his undying ambition to turn his talents, be it with a paddle or silver tongue, into fame and fortune. The film is a droll yet constantly amusing character study, as well as a scathing critique of our nation’s hubris after we saved the world from fascism in 1945. Movies as metaphors don’t come much larger and director Josh Safdie, working with a script he cowrote with Ronald Bronstein, emphasizes that new American male coming out of that period willing to replace traditional notions of honest, hard work with hustle and bustle.
The funny thing is, Marty is terrific at ping pong, but he’s even better at cajoling, seducing, bullying, and wearing down all comers until he gets his way. His is a fast-paced, scheming existence and director Safdie ensures that the style of the film echoes that energy. It moves, dare I say, ping-pongs all about, showcasing the crazed goings-on in Marty’s huffing, puffing existence. Whether he’s finagling his way to a better hotel room, smooth-talking various married women into sleeping with him, or simply trying to convince tournament personnel that his whopping loss to the world’s greatest player proves he’s actually the better competitor, Marty is all in, all the time.
His journey starts with him hounding a fellow shoe-store worker for $700 so that he can get over to Europe for a tournament. Marty tries everything to part the man from his money, from bribery to humiliation to physical harm. The fact that Marty looks like he weighs 100 lbs. dripping wet never dawns on him as he seems perfectly willing to put his body in harm’s way to get his way. Marty is a scrawny doofus, barely registering as an adult. He’s like an immature con man still learning the trade, a combination of Professor Harold Hill and Dennis the Menace, both man and child, running roughshod over hill and dale.
Along the way, Marty will try to return to table tennis glory, even enduring various indignities that most would blanche at. He agrees to be publicly spanked by a pompous businessman he’s crossed and the irony of the man using one of Marty’s ping pong paddles to tan his lily-white hide barely registers with him at all. Marty is all about the quickest line between A and B, never mind any embarrassment involved along the trail.
Safdie has surrounded Marty with dupes as worthy as Margaret Dumont in the old Marx Brothers movies and watching them be seduced by Marty and then infuriated by him as well is all part of the fun. Amongst those crossed by Marty include a fading actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), her callous investor of a husband (Kevin O’Leary), and the married hometown girl (Odessa A’zion) Marty carelessly impregnates.
Chalamet underplays most of it, never letting Marty become a total asshole. He’s matched in effect on screen by sterling costars including Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Emory Cohen, Geza Rohrig, and Tyler the Creator. Casting Director Jennifer Venditti should be up for a first-ever Oscar in that category come March, and don’t be surprised if this superbly rendered period piece makes for a strong showing come nomination day. The film suffers some from its extended length at two hours and 30 minutes. (Heck, at times it feels like a funny flip side of THE BRUTALIST.) Nonetheless, this film wears its confidence as proudly as Marty does parading around in his American federation gear or a hoity-toity hotel bathrobe.
It all makes for one of the year’s better films, one filled with a whole lot of comedy and some disturbing American tragedy.
