Rating 8/10
Forget what you heard. Marty Supreme is not a sports biopic about a ping-pong phenom. I went in expecting a straightforward drama about the American table tennis player Marty Reisman. Sure, it draws loose inspiration from the real-life professional player who did, in fact, work as a novelty act during intermissions and pregame with the Harlem Globetrotters. However, the film is far more expansive, given the sheer range of things that happen here. A more accurate description is that it channels Reisman’s legendary hustle as an outsider while inventing a wholly original character. The story is a hyperbolic fabrication.
Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is a gifted but impulsive young man stuck working at his uncle’s New York shoe store in 1952. He believes he is destined for greatness as a table tennis star. Unwilling to settle for a safe promotion or a conventional existence, Marty fixates on taking his game to the international stage and forcing America to take the sport seriously. When an opportunity arises to compete in a major international tournament in London, he scrambles to fund the trip. With his uncle and boss, Murray Mauser (Larry “Ratso” Sloman), away, Marty decides the money is his. He threatens a coworker (Ralph Colucci) at gunpoint and takes the company cash.
Right from the start, director Josh Safdie establishes Marty as a ferociously ambitious individual driven by an inflated sense of importance. That single act propels him beyond his small New York world and into an international arena. In London, the opportunist complains to the chair of the international federation (Pico Iyer) about being put up in a complimentary hotel room that does not meet his standards. Marty repositions himself at the Ritz Hotel, where he becomes smitten with retired actress and socialite Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow). This also puts him in the orbit of her husband, pen magnate Milton Rockwell (Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary), who sees the hustler as both an asset and a pawn. Marty’s hunger for recognition only accelerates his descent. He tangles with Ezra Mishkin (Abel Ferrara), a small-time criminal whose devotion to his dog reveals a volatile streak. Back home, the pressure spills into Marty’s unstable personal life, as his affair with married childhood friend Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion) makes things increasingly difficult.
Let’s be clear: I absolutely loved Marty Supreme, but I detested Marty Mauser. He is an entitled man driven by ambition and ego, convinced that winning will justify whatever damage he leaves behind. He is not admirable, but he is endlessly compelling. We have seen this personality before in figures like Frank Abagnale Jr. (Catch Me If You Can), Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood), or Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street), men whose audacity is fascinating to witness even as they leave the collateral wreckage of other people’s lives in their wake. This picture works because Timothée Chalamet completely embodies that archetype. He weaponizes his natural charisma. Marty’s charm is genuine, but his behavior is exasperating. Chalamet makes the audience understand why people keep trusting him and why they keep letting him get away with far more than they should.
One of the film’s great comic revelations is how little the story ultimately has to do with ping pong. That idea is elevated by its audacious cinematic style. Josh Safdie’s command of the medium is exhilarating, especially in his adventurous use of music. Daniel Lopatin’s shimmering orchestral score is supported by needle drops that somehow evoke the 1950s through an 1980s sensibility. Any period piece that opens and closes with songs by Tears for Fears, “Change” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” signals a cheeky tone. Tracks like Peter Gabriel’s “I Have the Touch,” “The Perfect Kiss” by New Order, and “Forever Young” by Alphaville lend the film a thrilling anachronistic modernity. Darius Khondji’s cinematography captures the era with rich period detail in the costumes and production design. Meanwhile, the intense table tennis matches that occasionally seize the spotlight are rendered with gripping multi-camera precision. I am not ashamed to admit that this American was rooting for the Japanese player Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) at the climax.
Audiences often want to like the people they are watching, but cinema is not simply about individuals we are meant to champion. Marty Mauser is a deeply unlikable narcissist, but he is the star of a wildly entertaining work of cinema. Sometimes it is about brazen figures who bully their way through life and receive breaks they have not earned, fueled by nothing but hubris. Not everything goes swimmingly. Marty Mauser does get his comeuppance now and then, and I found myself celebrating those moments every time. There is one particularly humiliating party scene involving a ping pong paddle and a spanking that tells you everything you need to know about the people involved. One onlooker observes, “This is more dramatic than the play we just saw,” which is easily one of the funniest lines. The screenplay by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie is packed with moments like this, and that is Marty Supreme in a nutshell. It is embarrassing, funny, awkward, chaotic, and mesmerizing, all rolled into one unforgettable experience.
12-31-25