Marty Supreme movie review: Timothee Chalamet’s manifest destiny as ping pong hustler

One of the most hyped movies of recent times will finally be released in Australia for audiences to answer the ultimate question: does it live up to everything Timothee Chalamet has promised?

Dream big, the slogan for Marty Supreme demanded, and it’s a perfect encapsulation for this frenetic, at-times stressful and always compelling film. It has mighty ambitions, not just for its title character, but as a piece of cinema.

There is an urgency to Marty Supreme, both in its frenzied, always-moving pacing and in its declaration that there is great value in the experience of being magnetised to a larger-than-life character’s story.

Josh Safdie’s film commands your attention, and in casting Chalamet, one of the most talented actors of his generation who turns in an undeniably gung-ho performance, Marty Supreme earns it.

Chalamet is fantastic as Marty Mauser, a hustler driven by a compulsion to win at any cost, vibrating with uncontrollable hunger in pursuit of money, success and recognition. You can’t look away, even when you’re, at times, kind of repelled by him.

Set in the 1950s, Marty Supreme is loosely based on the story of Marty Reisman, a real-life American ping pong champion. The film version, Marty Mauser, is a young man who hails from a New York City tenement, honing his craft at a table tennis hall on Broadway.

From the moment we meet him working for his uncle at a shoe shop, we understand him. He manipulates an elderly customer into buying more expensive treads, and it’s so effortless that you get this is something he’s become very good at.

Selling shoes is only a means to the next step, the table tennis British Open, where Marty blows in with bluster, putting himself up at the Ritz, propositioning Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a former movie star walking through the lobby, and provoking her husband, stationery mogul Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary).

Back in New York City months later, Marty’s chances of heading to the world championships in Tokyo is under serious threat, and over the next few days, he gets caught up in one scrape after another as he tries to pull together the money – beg, borrow or steal, whatever it takes – he needs to compete.

If you’ve seen one of Safdie’s previous films that he made with brother Benny, but especially Good Time or Uncut Gems, you would already have a sense of the pulsating energy of his work, as if it’s always just moments before a heart attack.

Marty Supreme has that similar kineticism, which was actually lacking from Benny Safdie’s solo film released three months earlier, the dull Dwayne Johnson biopic The Smashing Machine. Marty Supreme is never boring, and it does suggest where each Safdie brother’s strengths lay.

Across the board, Safdie has elicited strong performances from his cast, which includes Marty’s quick-talking love interest Rachel (Odessa A’zion), a childhood friend whose penchant for a fast lie hints at a particular culture that shaped them both.

There are also supporting turns from the Tyler Okonma, AKA Tyler the Creator as Marty’s friend Wally, Luke Manley as a naïve friend Marty exploits, Abel Ferrara as a criminal who loves his dog, and Fran Drescher as Marty’s mum.

Each performance adds to the texture of the crazy tapestry of this slice of New York City, along with Darius Khondji’s dynamic cinematography focused on Marty’s forever moving limbs against the backdrop of a busy city, and the meticulous production design by Jack Fisk.

There are scenes that will replay in your mind again and again – Marty and Wally running alongside a car, looks of pure joy on their faces – because they’re just that good.

Marty Supreme looks amazing, and all in service of seducing you to back a character whose actions don’t always deserve that support.

Marty has a very American strand of self-belief and entitlement, a distillation of manifest destiny in a person – he never wavers from the idea that he will become more than his circumstances, and that everyone in his orbit should be working in service of his goals.

On the one hand, you admire the gumption, because there is something irresistible to someone with such a singular purpose, and who works really hard to achieve it (you can’t accuse Marty of being lazy).

On the other, that lack of humility, perspective or being able to see other people as their own persons with their own stories, makes him an inherently frustrating figure.

That conflict is part of why Marty Supreme burrows in, living in your head as you ask yourself, is Marty Mauser a hero?

It’s not an easy question to settle, and it shouldn’t be. It speaks to the artistic potency of Marty Supreme as a film and Chalamet as an actor that it’s even debatable.

This is not a movie you’ll forget in a hurry.

Rating: 4.5/5

Marty Supreme has previews from January 12, followed by a wide release from January 22