Set in the 1950s, Josh Safdie’s (Uncut Gems) new film, Marty Supreme, tells the wild story of Marty Mauser, a fast-talking, endlessly persuasive ping-pong prodigy, grifting even while selling shoes in his uncle’s cramped Lower East Side shop. That small life is never enough. Marty wants everything. The money. The action. The recognition. Ultimately, the global stage. In post-war America, respect for the sport is scarce, even for a player this gifted, and Marty is determined to force the world to see him.
Timothée Chalamet’s performance is the engine of the film and one of the most exhilarating turns of his career. He plays Marty as emotionally detached, a man wearing masks within masks. Marty is always performing, always selling, constantly shaping perception.
One of the film’s sharpest observations appears early, when Marty tells Kay, Gwyneth Paltrow, an aging Hollywood star attempting a comeback, that he is “something of a performer too.” It functions as the film’s thesis. Marty is never offstage. His entire life is a performance.
That narcissism is not vanity for its own sake. It is survival. Marty believes that if he stops performing, he disappears. His success is fueled by charisma, manipulation, and a relentless hunger for validation. Chalamet makes that obsession feel physical, almost phonetic, and dangerously seductive.
Marty lies. He steals. He repeatedly puts the people closest to him in harm’s way. Yet the audience is invited to forgive it all because he is charming and wants something badly. This is the same cultural impulse that celebrated Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, or mythologized outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If ambition is loud enough, morality becomes negotiable.
This is a uniquely American instinct. We root for dreamers even when they cut corners, manipulate others, or burn everything behind them in the pursuit of success. Marty embodies that instinct to its extreme.
Everyone in his orbit is disposable. He is the ultimate narcissistic archetype, incapable of loyalty or true friendship. Rachel, played by Odessa A’zion, is his childhood best friend. When she becomes pregnant, Marty denies responsibility until acknowledging the child becomes useful to him. He has no moral code or loyalty to anyone other than himself, lying to his own mother, Fran Drescher, stealing from his uncle Murray, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, and if he is willing to screw over his own family, he doesn’t blink at double-crossing Gwyneth Paltrow’s wealthy mogul husband, Kevin O’Leary, and quite literally screwing his wife, practically under the same roof. Love is transactional. Accountability is optional.
The film’s most striking symbolism comes through Enzo, Marty’s Japanese rival, played by Koto Kawaguchi. Enzo is deaf and never speaks. This is a deliberate and brilliant contrast. Marty never stops talking. He weaponizes language, confidence, and verbal agility to manipulate everyone around him. The film quietly asks whether Marty is truly a great athlete or simply a master illusionist, a vaudeville performer whose greatest skill is believing his own act.
Enzo represents something entirely different. Discipline. Honor. Quiet mastery. A culture built on work rather than performance. Marty represents the American ethos of fake it till you make it, where belief substitutes for substance and noise substitutes for truth.
Marty Supreme is a ride. Chaotic. Frenetic. Barely controlled. Josh Safdie directs with breathless velocity, turning a niche sport into a two-and-a-half-hour adrenaline rush that borders on insanity. The film is not polite, restrained, or reassuring. It is electrifying.
And that, ultimately, is the point.
BOTTOM LINE: Marty Supreme is destined to become film of the year and an instant classic because it taps into the American experience of rebellion, ambition, and the uneasy thrill of watching men who refuse to play by the rules. It’s a REEL SEE.
Amy Pais-Richer is REEL 360 News’ newest contributor. She is a published author and we are lucky to have her!
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