Timothée Chalamet keeps swinging for that inevitable Oscar nomination, and in Marty Supreme, he may have found the role that edges him closest yet. Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie (flying solo without brother Benny this time), the film is only loosely inspired by table-tennis legend Marty Reisman.
What Safdie delivers instead is a frantic, grimy, New York fever dream about a morally slippery shoe salesperson who treats life like one long back-alley ping-pong match he refuses to lose. Set in the 1950s, the film follows Marty Mauser (Chalamet), a charming chatterbox who sells shoes by day and hustles table tennis by night.
Marty is talented, magnetic, and completely unmoored from any semblance of a moral compass. He’s sleeping with his married best friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion), stringing her along while giving her nothing but scraps. When he crosses paths with wealthy actress-socialite Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), he dives headfirst into a second affair—because Marty’s pursuit of greatness, or at least the illusion of it, is bottomless.
Walking into Marty Supreme, I expected a straightforward period biopic. But when the film opens with a surreal fertilization montage set to Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” I knew Safdie wasn’t playing anything straight. The DNA of “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” is all over this: frenetic pacing, flawed men sprinting toward doom, New York’s underbelly pulsating in every frame, and a protagonist who creates 95% of his own problems yet keeps you glued to the screen.
Chalamet taps into a snakier, more reckless energy than we’ve ever seen from him. He plays Marty as a guy who’s convinced he’s destined for something bigger but keeps sabotaging himself with impulsive, selfish decisions. You don’t root for him—you root to see what he does next, which is precisely the Safdie sweet spot.
The supporting cast adds real juice. Gwyneth Paltrow slips comfortably into a brittle, high-society veneer with cracks just big enough for Marty to exploit. Odessa A’zion’s chaotic vulnerability gives Rachel more dimension than the script even requires.
Kevin O’Leary—yes, that Kevin O’Leary—feels like he’s playing a ruthlessly polished version of himself, and it works. The real scene-stealer, though, is Tyler Okonma (aka Tyler, the Creator), whose turn as Wally, the taxi-driving ping-pong savant, feels alive and improvisational. It’s a shame the film doesn’t let him cook for longer.
Visually, Josh Safdie teams with cinematographer Darius Khondji to craft something that feels both era-accurate and electric. The camera often vibrates with the same jittery adrenaline coursing through Marty’s decisions. The cutting is sharp, the sound design claustrophobic—classic Safdie chaos, smoothed slightly by the period setting but still unmistakably him.
Earlier this fall, Benny Safdie stepped out with “The Smashing Machine”, a bruising sports biopic. With “Marty Supreme”, Josh makes the stronger solo statement. This film isn’t a mainstream crowd-pleaser, but it is a film people will talk about—because of Chalamet’s sweaty, twitchy lead performance and because Josh Safdie knows how to turn a deeply flawed man into cinematic nitroglycerin.
Fall Grade: B+
“Marty Supreme” opens in theaters on Christmas Day.
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