REVIEW: “Marty Supreme” (2025)

(Source: IMDb) 

Like his brother Benny, Josh Safdie made a solo directorial effort last year with a loosely-based adaptation of the life of table tennis prodigy and hustler Marty Reisman in the 1950s. Co-written and edited by Safdie (along with Ronald Bronstein), Timothée Chalamet commands the screen with the fictionalized Marty Mauser, relentlessly pursuing the American Dream in the 1950s. Right off the bat (er, paddle), this two-and-a-half-hour intense drama a la Uncut Gems (but reportedly more so) is the kind of cinematic experience that will easily give you high anxiety. 

Set primarily in New York City in the 1950s, before ping pong apparently became a big thing in the United States, Marty Supreme was shot on Kodak film, which utilizes Jack Fisk’s period production design to create an immersive world and time period. The phenomenal cast includes diverse performers like Gwyneth Paltrow, Fran Drescher, Shark Tank host Kevin O'Leary, and Odessa A’zion. And although the story is set in the ’50s, the filmmakers populate the soundtrack with 1980s tracks, courtesy artists like Tears for Fears and Alphaville. Ditto a dynamic and electric score by Daniel Lopatin. (It sort of reminded me of Chariots of Fire, which was released in 1981, while its story was set in the early-1920s but used a synthesizer score that more echoed the era it was released.) 

I’ve played ping pong a lot growing up, but I have never seen it played with such intensity and aggression before. (That’s really Chalamet swinging the paddle and playing, making Forrest Gump look like a Boy Scout by comparison.) But Marty Supreme, as a whole, is a different film than you may be expecting. Its high-wire narrative really grips you, churns your stomach, and knocks the wind out of you. 

The thing about Marty himself is his fast-talking nature, persistence, cockiness, narcissism, and pride. As a testament to Chalamet’s performance, he is also thoroughly engrossing. That being said, one of the film’s subplots (but not based on a real-life fact) involves affairs with married women, including one his age and another that is older. The opening credits, strangely enough, recall Look Who’s Talking, but as a visual metaphor of conflict between the title character’s ambitions and his potential responsibilities. 

For him, there is no Plan B or C or anything else. There is only Plan A. This is a character in way over his head, going from one outlandish situation to the next, all while being careless over how complex and challenging things really are, including his own dysfunctional and complicated relationships and connections. And he doesn’t stop. Likewise, the slow-burning tension escalates more and more as this profane and unpredictable character study goes along, complete with some shocking and/or graphic moments. I did say this film would/will give you high anxiety, didn’t I?