Watching “Marty Supreme” can be exhausting, or exhilarating, depending on your perspective.
Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a spectacular ping pong player with the chutzpah to believe he’s a star. Based on a quasi-true story, Marty is a working-class kid from the tenements of the Lower East Side, who dreams of winning the 1952 Table Tennis British Open. Getting himself to the tournament in London is more of a challenge than most of his matches, requiring hustles, schemes, and finagling. Wacky mishaps turn into giant disasters, many of Marty’s own making, and the barriers pile up as time runs out.
Along for the wild ride is Rachel, played by Odessa A’zion, Marty’s close childhood friend. They shtup in the shoe store where he works, and she proves to be almost as much of a think-on-your-feet hustler as Marty. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kay, a coolly beautiful, one-time movie star, whose husband has a business proposition for the young ping pong wunderkind. Kay and Marty’s improbable affair is a bid for access to power and money in his case, for access to youthful ambition in hers.
Other terrific cast members include Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Tyler the Creator, and Abel Ferrara. Stuffed with characters and set pieces, “Marty Supreme” has moments of shocking violence, like a bathtub crashing through a ceiling, and indelible images, like the thousands of orange ping pong balls cascading out of an upper story apartment building window.
Directed by Josh Safdie (whose partnership with brother Ben produced cultural touchstones like “Uncut Gems”), “Marty Supreme” explores the complexity of post-war Jewish-American life. Marty has opted out of the model minority route but still grasps for his piece of the American Dream. Safdie claims for Marty resilience and pride, rather than leaning into stereotypical post-war depictions of Jewish victimhood. Marty’s bravado goes in quite the opposite direction, making Holocaust jokes as he confronts antisemitism. This theme provides a depth that would otherwise be missing from a film whose frantic pace doesn’t quite mask its emptiness.
“Marty Supreme” was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including best film, best director, and of course, best actor. Timothée Chalamet delivers a larger-than-life performance of a relentlessly narcissistic character. He’s already won a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice award. Whether he’ll win an Oscar and complete the trifecta is something the betting markets have odds on, placing his chances at about 75%.
You can tune in to the Academy Awards on Saturday, March 15th to see if he wins – and in the meantime, you can head to Park City Film February 20th to 22nd to see “Marty Supreme.” The film runs 2 hours and 29 minutes.
