The seed is planted in the first scene of MARTY SUPREME. Marty Mauser impregnates his girlfriend in a frenzy of locomotion, standing up in the back room of a shoe store before setting out on a high speed chase to becoming the table tennis champion of the world! It takes balls, mad skills, and maniacal focus by a man possessed by an outlandish dream. I couldn’t take my eyes off MARTY SUPREME our titular hero who forges new frontiers of passion, swagger, and downright assholery as played by Timothée Chalamet. Trailer HERE!
Chalamet sports a skinny mustache below and a unibrow above his nose and glasses, his lean and hungry frame live-wired as he hustles his way through the table tennis underworld of 1950’s NYC, fleeing family dysfunction as he scrambles to get the scratch to satisfy his itch to be the best paddle master on the planet! That paddle will eventually and literally deliver an unforgettable walloping– which never slows him down.
The movie directed by Josh Safdie who co-wrote the script with Ronald Bronstein, is loosely based on real-life table tennis champ Marty Reisman, and propels itself across the screen in a magnificently-shot odyssey of surreal escapades involving gangsters, gamblers, a dog in a bathtub, angry cops, relatives, betrayed husbands, lovers, friends– all while Marty pingpongs back and forth across the globe, in and out of the upper echelons of the sport and Gwyneth Paltrow’s bed.
Paltrow is perfect as a stiffly coiffed, clad, and faded movie star Kay Stone, who is roused from her dismal marriage by the audacity and promise of this almost predatory young dreamer. In their scenes together, we see her longing for her past glory, and a glint of vulnerability beneath his bravado.
Every scene is a thrilling set piece, not the least of which are the table tennis sequences, as gripping as any competitive sport ever shot. Chalamet who was trained by pros and practiced for years while making other movies, executes these athletic battles with professional level skill and theatrical dazzle. These scenes, some of which are judiciously enhanced with CGI, are show-stopping.
Safdie has assembled a wild assortment of talents who magically coalesce and crackle onscreen: Kevin O’Leary–yes, “Shark Tank”‘s business honcho in his feature film debut–who holds the purse strings here too; Odessa A’zion, Tyler (the Creator) Okonma, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Abel Ferrara, Globetrotters Kemba Walker & Tracy McGrady, and an almost unrecognizable Penn Gillette!
Safdie brings it all home in the film’s final scenes, emotionally complex moments which capture the messy fallout which comes from choices made in brazen pursuit of a dream–and a life. Chalamet’s dream may come true this year with an Oscar for Best Actor. No matter: MARTY SUPREME and Timothée Chalamet’s performance are among the finest of the year. DO NOT MISS.
