Marty Supreme

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Marty Supreme follows Marty Mauser, a professional table tennis player who has banked his entire life on becoming a major success through the sport. When his bad decisions and narcissism catch up with him, Marty risks everything to raise enough money to qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo.

I feel like it's pretty easy to recognise a Marty. That's what I thought after leaving this film. There is so much talk about hustling, grinding and being the best possible you amongst young men these days; a perpetual push for greatness and success via narcissism and self-serving action. Marty Supreme is a film about being a young man who has staked his very being on being one thing: the very best. Yet, watching this movie, it quickly shifts from feeling thrilling to becoming wildly dismaying, watching Marty try and fail at every turn to be the success he claims to be. Marty Mauser, our protagonist, is a legendary table tennis player. But Marty Mauser is rarely a good person. He pushes aside his mother, he robs from his uncle, he knocks up one of his closest friends and doesn't take responsibility for the child, and at every turn, he lies. Marty racks up debt to stay at the Ritz, and he plays manipulative games to coerce an acting celebrity to sleep with him. Because Marty doesn't serve his responsibilities or even his life, he serves the image he wishes to portray. This movie isn't about a character who is the victim of his own success; Marty is the victim of sacrificing everything good in or around him to seem successful. It's an important distinction, one that the film drills home superbly. By the very end of the film, once Marty has cast everything aside, humiliated himself and been left with his ego no longer intact, he manages to find a moment of triumph. A point where it is just him and his skill left, a compelling moment that feels righteous despite everything. This film is also Rachel Mizler's story in a lot of ways, too. Rachel is the young woman who gets knocked up by Marty, abandoned while he tours the world and then spends the weeks of his return trying to get him to connect with her. It's agonising to see the lengths Rachel goes to win Marty's attention.

Josh Safdie has an absolutely riveting piece of cinema with Marty Supreme. If you thought the Safdie Brothers were delivering something wild with Uncut Gems, this is the next step up. The camera pushes in close for these conniving deals and moments of bargaining while also getting creative with how it constructs moments of action or the speedy delivery of those table tennis sequences. The editing has an exceptional flow to it; the film feels like it is rushing to a crash-out in the best possible way. The score really holds you in its grip, scaling those moments of shock and making you feel exasperated in all of the right places. The soundtrack grounds things in the time while also drilling home those themes of false young grandeur; tracks like 'Forever Young' by Alphaville capture the point of Marty Supreme exactly.

Larry 'Ratso' Sloman, who played Murray Norkin, is the ultimate'tough love' uncle; Sloman really tries to rein in Chalamet's tremendous ego in a pretty grounded manner. Odessa A'zion, who played Rachel Mizler, is an absolute standout star in this; A'Zion gives us a woman who is trying so hard to win over the attention of the man she loves that she is letting herself be swallowed by the danger he faces. Luke Manley, who played Dion Galanis, starts the film being blindly optimistic and enchanted with Chalamet's Marty; Manley does a great job of presenting a character who realises his friend is a liar and a fraud. Emory Cohen, who played Ira Mizler, is a very volatile husband to A'Zion in this; Cohen's character is a really wound-up and aggressive guy who often puts that energy back onto his wife. John Catsimatidis, who played Christopher Galanis, is really shrewd at bartering with Chalamet; I like how Catsimatidis plays a scene as if he is protecting Manley's character. Géza Röhrig, who played Béla Kletzki, is one of the more quietly earnest characters in the film; Röhrig really strives for the best and is a moment of good in Marty's orbit. Pico Iyer, who played Ram Sethi, is an incredibly strict edge of authority; Iyer brings a tremendous level of decorum to the role that makes his hatred for Marty work so well. Kevin O'Leary, who played Milton Rockwell, just steals the show in this film almost constantly; I had no idea the sort of raw antagonist potential O'Leary had in him, but I am glad Josh Safdie did. Abel Ferrara, who played Ezra Mishkin, is a real tough crook; Ferrara does a good job of introducing him in a sympathetic light before revealing how dangerous he can be. Isaac Mizrahi, who played Merle, is a real spirited delight; Mizrahi actually manages to draw some real energy out of scenes with Paltrow.

However, the best performance came from Timothée Chalamet, who played Marty Mauser. This is the sort of performance that feels like everything has been thrown at it. Chalamet wants us to see he understands Marty and is going to give it his all. If you want to watch a performance where the character thinks he is a charismatic, quick-talker, Chalamet has that aspect down completely. This is a character who serves himself first and will burn others in his wake if it gets him even a little bit ahead. Chalamet's take on Marty is at times quite self-aware of his own lack of morality, sometimes wallowing in this and at others wickedly praising his own deviousness. His spirit really breaks in the final act, and after that, a lot of the ego strips away. Watch everything Chalamet gives in those table tennis scenes; that final game is nothing short of impressive.

The thing I will always struggle to enjoy about films like Marty Supreme is that it's difficult to root for a cast of characters who are mostly dislikeable. Marty is a protagonist who almost immediately begins the film by showing us he can be pretty awful towards others. He robbed his uncle's shoe store by pulling a gun on a fellow clerk. But even many of the side characters exhibit horrible personality moments, the film tends towards showing the audience morally weak individuals colliding with one another. I also felt the 'happy ending' of the final moments was far too safe for what this movie had been. Marty, finding himself with a secure family situation moving forward doesn't really mesh nicely with the tone of the movie up until that point.

Tyler the Creator, who played Wally, doesn't really fall in step as Marty's buddy; this is a performance that really accompanies Chalamet but doesn't strike much of a chord. Fran Drescher, who played Rebecca Mauser, doesn't really connect with Chalamet in a way that feels like they have any mother/son relationship at all; Drescher's mother figure is a flat presence in the film with little self-agency. Dwyneth Paltrow, who played Kay Stone, is so staggeringly obvious in this; Paltrow plays a pretty shallow part in a role that could have been more in anyone else's hands.

Timothée Chalamet treats this movie like it is all or nothing, resulting in a must-watch piece of cinema. I would give Marty Supreme a 9/10.