Marty Supreme
Dream big or whatever… no one cares.
A24’s new big bet was placed on the creative tandem of director Josh Safdie and the ever-present Timothée Chalamet. Did that bet pay off?
Marty Supreme tells the story of a talented table tennis player, Marty Mauser. Life didn’t exactly give him many gifts. He works as a shoe store clerk, he is constantly short on money, and he loves only one thing — playing table tennis and winning. After losing first place at the world championship to a Japanese player, the only thing he can think about is getting revenge at the next world championship. But in order to get there, he has to go through a lot of unexpected, strange, and dangerous adventures. And none of that guarantees him the outcome he needs.
That’s basically the plot of Marty Supreme in very short form, because going into details doesn’t really make sense. This is not a movie whose core lies in big spoilers or secret twists. It’s very on the table — because the main task of this film is to entertain its audience. And, wow, it really does that. Over its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, you never even think about checking the time. The pacing is that good, that dynamic, that engaging, that you have no other option but to just sit there and enjoy.
At its core, Marty Supreme is a movie about big egos. Big egos of both the rich and the poor. About how being talented doesn’t mean you are a good person. About how selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic people can be. And about how fucked up people tend to do great things if they are talented enough. This is a movie about hustle culture in a nutshell, and about how chaos grows on its own around chaotic people. About how the environment starts to bend around someone and ends up playing against them if that person never stops to think about what is actually happening around them and who they even are.
At the same time, this is a film that tries to circle around the most overused tropes, kind of mocking them while still using them. Maybe that’s why the opening and closing songs are two of the most overused tracks in the history of film and television: Forever Young and Everybody Wants to Rule the World. And honestly, if that was supposed to be meta-irony, it didn’t really work on me — way too on the nose. The ending of the film, while deliberately ambiguous about why the protagonist is crying — whether he has grown as a person or whether he is mourning the realization that he will never become as great as he wanted — ultimately lacks a certain emotional clarity.
Everything else is honestly great. The film looks beautiful — insanely stylish, fast, bright, and full of edgy jokes. I watched it in Poland, and one of those jokes didn’t get nearly the reaction it probably did in other countries. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean.
And of course, the main thing to talk about is… you could say the cast, but really, it’s Timothée Chalamet. He carries this movie from start to finish. He is the center of every frame, even when there’s more than one person on screen. He absolutely nailed it — charismatic, eccentric enough, and completely believable. Despite all the big names on the screen, Tyler, the Creator really stood out to me — he did an amazing job. Abel Ferrara comes across as a bombastic, almost cartoonish villain. And Luke Manley was great as this kind of “mom’s friend’s perfect son” type of guy. But still, this is the Timothée Chalamet show, and he is the host, the main act, and the intermission all at once.
Marty Supreme is a film about goals, dreams, ego, assholes, rich bastards, and poor talents who are not necessarily good people. It’s a movie about the fact that all of us are a little fucked up. And that you have to live not with that, but despite that.
8.5/10
