Dir: Josh Safdie | Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Abel Farrara | US biopic drama
Chalamet is Marty Mauser a gutsy guy punching his way to the top in this messily-plotted sports drama about – of all things – ping pong.
Talent is one thing but Marty also has the crucial ingredients of passion and perseverance that stand him in good stead of achieving his goal in Safdie’s follow-up to his 2019 sparkler Uncut Gems
Marty Supreme fizzes with energy depicting the New York Jewish milieu where Marty’s resilience and self-belief is breathtaking. Like most people he’s a complex character, and Safdie and his co-writer Ronald Bronstein trip lightly and amusingly through the early stages of the story with a refreshing score of music from the likes of Peter Gabriel and propulsive widescreen visuals and sweaty close-ups from Darius Khondji.
Inspired by late American table tennis legend Marty Reisman, Chalamet crafts a committed if detached performance blinding in self-belief, not to mention a total disregard for common decency, to achieve a dream as the over-talky protagonist in an caper that is more of a rich character study than a sports film.
It all starts in 1952 on the Lower East Side of New York where the gawky 23-year-old is a born footwear salesman (‘I could sell shoes to an amputee’). With a scrappy moustache and glasses, Marty dreams of becoming a professional ping-pong player and he’s saving money to take part in a critical international match in London.
One of the various subplots involves Marty’s relationship with Rachel, an unhappily married ‘friend with benefits’, at least for the libidinous Marty who’s already displaying the sociopathic side of his personality in his casual attitude to others and brash behaviour. In short Marty’s focus is Marty, and nobody else.
After a weird visual sequence involving sperm rather shoes or ping pong balls the film catapults us into a fierce table tennis foray where the nascent star is seen playing and winning a match with flying colours.
This sets the tone for Marty’s skill at the game. On the road to success, the film demonstrates what a hellbent bastard the young player is in achieving his dream and financing the way forward. There’s a scene where he chats up Kay Stone (Paltrow), the second character in a loveless marriage, and ends up bedding her. Another where he offers to buy dinner for a high-flying businessman, a ploy to secure finance and showcase his ‘business prowess’. A brutally unnecessary one where a dog and a man are badly injured when a bath in his rental room falls through the floor, Marty selfishly ignoring their pain for his own gain. The film is stuffed with these scenes that demonstrate the young player’s chutzpah in self-aggrandisement and his desperate efforts to extort money. Amongst other ploys he kidnaps another dog from a gangster (Ferrara) and then bribes him to get the animal back.
Safdie seems to enjoy showing us Marty’s reckless lack of humanity, but there is just too much of this and not enough real charaterisation; it’s exhausting and repetitive. Clearly Marty is a driven personality, and ‘needs must when the Devil drives’. But pruning the narrative a touch would sharpen its focus and certainly not detract from the entertainment of this intriguing biopic. @MeredithTaylor
IN CINEMAS FROM 12 DECEMBER 2025