Light spoilers for “Marty Supreme” ahead
After walking red carpets with Kylie Jenner and partying courtside at Knicks games, Timothée Chalamet capped off his “White Boy of the Year” run with the Christmas Day release of the highly anticipated drama “Marty Supreme.” Directed by Josh Safdie, the film’s budget was $70 million, making it the most expensive A24 work to date.
“Marty Supreme” is just as much about ping pong player Marty Mauser as it is about the star behind the role. Preparations for the movie began eight years ago, when Chalamet was approached by ping pong enthusiast Safdie. After he agreed to the role, Chalamet began taking lessons and even brought a ping-pong table to the set of “Dune 2.” Leading up to “Marty Supreme”’s release, Chalamet went on a three-month promotional spree, which saw him posing with a giant “Marty Supreme” blimp next to the Hollywood sign, posting a viral fake marketing meeting skit on YouTube and rapping line after line on a remix of underground artist EsDeeKid’s “4 Raws.” Though eye-catching, none of these stunts provided much insight into the movie’s premise.
Behind all the glitz and glamor, the actual film focuses on a scrappy Marty, who swindles and charms those around him to survive in 1950s New York City, all the while pursuing his dreams of becoming ping pong world champion and an American icon. Though the plot is driven by Marty’s ambitions, the bulk of the film takes place between two tournaments. The movie begins with Marty losing the British Open to Japanese player Koto Endo, played by ping pong champion Koto Kawaguchi, but most of the runtime centers around Marty conning others out of money so he can fly to Tokyo for the World Championships and avenge his loss.
Chalamet’s character is loosely based on the real-life ping pong hustler Marty Reisman, who won 22 major titles throughout his career. However, “Marty Supreme” adds a delirious twist to real life, deliberately leaning into the destruction that Marty instigates. As the film follows Marty gathering money to travel to Tokyo, he falls through a hotel ceiling in a bathtub, steals a mafia affiliate’s dog and, through a chaotic chain of events, blows up a gas station. He spends the majority of the film trying to evade everyone he’s wronged while bleeding his existing connections dry.
These absurd side quests weaken Marty’s character development, and, combined with the film’s deliberately pushy jokes and irony-drenched tone, makes it incredibly difficult to connect with the narcissism at the core of the story. For all the moments of brilliance the cast delivers, “Marty Supreme” only vaguely entertains the idea that Marty’s actions have consequences. It reads like a slap on the wrist for the worst guy you know. Despite film bros’ insistence that Marty’s insufferable nature is the point, the movie is only a few steps away from tooting the horns of Instagram grindset course sellers on a level unmatched since “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Still, “Marty Supreme” draws viewers back into the spectacle with visceral production that refuses to give viewers time to breathe. After Alphaville’s “Forever Young” takes the film through its opening credits, the score is filled with hard-hitting synths, which — occasionally accompanied by a tiny ball flying back and forth — make for a deliberately uneasy watch. Shots from cinematographer Darius Khondji and composer Daniel Lopatin pull the audience into suspense — calculated sound effects, gritty color grading and tight closeups keep the momentum going long after the plot begins to drag.
“Marty Supreme” features a mix of A-listers and nontraditional actors, and both groups pull their weight. Tyler Okonma feels right at home when he joins Marty’s exploits, and Kevin O’Leary doesn’t have to reach far to play his snobby magnate role as Milton Rockwell. In particular, Odessa A’zion gives a magnetic performance as Marty’s lover Rachel, causing almost as much destruction as him as she also scams others for Marty’s sake. But Chalamet is still the main attraction, and he serves up a masterfully disastrous character in what’s widely considered to be his best performance to date. With modest assistance from editors and makeup artists, he transforms from a tender twink to a sweaty, hustling, smooth-talking New Yorker. He embodies the role to a worrisome extent. Safdie wrote the script with Chalamet in mind, and the role pushes his natural charisma to its limits.
By positioning Marty as an intentionally unlikeable character, the movie attempts to reframe its obsession with his manipulative behavior as a form of condemnation. To an extent, it uses this framing to critique American classism and hustle culture: Marty, despite his constant bargaining, begging and backstabbing, will never truly be happy with himself. Certain scenes clearly convey this message — such as when the wealthy Milton Rockwell humiliates Marty by spanking him with a ping-pong paddle — but the fluctuating relationship between viewers and the protagonist weakens the film’s promising themes. Whether or not the audience sees Marty’s brief punishments as tragic or deserved is entirely dependent on how they’ve internalized his destructive behavior so far. But, like Marty himself, the film fails to seriously consider a reality where it completely alienates the audience. The result is a movie that feels overly self-assured, rather than truly self-aware.
“Marty Supreme” tries to have it all — an exhilarating exploration of a hustler that leaves just enough room to find his heart. But beneath all the high-velocity filmmaking is a conceit that’s surprisingly hollow: what if a man got everything he hustled for, and it still wasn’t enough? The film tries to complicate the question with its ending, an emotional scene of Marty crying over his newborn son. Its ambiguity has sparked discourse, but in any case, the movie reflects a perennial obsession with men who make others’ lives worse. Intended or not, “Marty Supreme” ultimately resembles a form of male wish fulfillment — his damage is an accessory to his ambition, and even the child whose mother Marty abandoned can become a source of profundity if he wants it to be.
But the film’s undying focus on its internal drama renders any lasting message trivial. Focusing on Marty’s antics as a source of intrigue might make for an exciting watch, but for the majority of viewers, that entertainment value comes at the expense of being able to engage with the film as a cogent piece of messaging. The film briefly criticizes the rich, but casts the guy who applauds poverty. It interrogates the constant pursuit of youth and fame, but its biggest accomplishment so far has been further entrenching Chalamet as an acting sensation. It would resemble hypocrisy if the film didn’t also clutch its layered irony so close.
Ultimately, “Marty Supreme” is a meta game with no clear payoff. Like Marty himself, the movie is a test of how far one can get by selling a glossy, convincing exterior. And like its extensive marketing campaign, the movie prioritizes image at the expense of vulnerability, resulting in a film that demonstrates technical prowess but lacks lucidity. Marty’s name might be on the Wheaties box and the limited-edition windbreaker, but that doesn’t mean the film is worth buying.
RATING: 3/5
