(Check out Chris Reed’s Marty Supreme movie review! It’s in theaters now via A24. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
Brothers Benny and Josh Safdie together made a string of highly regarded features, culminating with the 2019 Uncut Gems. This past year, they each released solo efforts, Benny directing The Smashing Machine and Josh doing Marty Supreme. The latter runs 150 minutes and is a little bit all over the place, but holds the viewer’s attention throughout despite its messiness. Starring Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) as an early-1950s table-tennis player (and major hustler), the movie is a manic, often-entertaining ride through the misadventures of a would-be sports hero who refuses to ever give up.
One thing Marty Supreme has in abundance is energy. Photographed by legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji, who has two other films out in 2025—Eddington and Mickey 17—the narrative pops in every frame, and not only in the high-stakes matches (which impress almost beyond belief). This vigor overflows in most other scenes, too, though not always to the benefit of the story.
Chalamet plays Marty Mauser—based on Marty Reisman, a real-life mid-century ping-pong champion—a man intent on rising above his current station to make a name for himself in his chosen field of table tennis. Stuck at the moment in what he sees as a dead-end job selling shoes for his uncle, Marty will do anything to escape his situation, stopping at nothing, not even crime (petty or otherwise). He’s not delusional; in fact, he’s quite a good player. But he’s also intensely self-destructive. If there’s a wrong move he can make on his way to the top, he’ll make it.
The movie opens with a sex scene, Marty seducing a very willing (and very married) Rachel (Odessa A’zion, Mark, Mary & Some Other People) in the stacks of his uncle’s store. Cut to spermatozoa going wild on their swim up fallopian tubes as the credits play. Surely a plot point is being laid.
But first, off to London, where Marty almost triumphs; he at least makes it to the finals. While there, he makes another conquest, of a middle-aged movie star, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is deeply unhappy with her life. Married to a successful businessman, Milton (Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary), she somehow finds the brash, pockmarked young Marty just interesting enough (and his desire for her just intoxicating enough) to put her comfortable situation at risk. From there, we zig and we zag from one improbable situation to the next, with both Rachel (now pregnant), her husband Ira (Emory Cohen, Blue Bayou), and Kay (and Milton) factoring into the mayhem.
As a study of singular obsession, Marty Supreme masterfully blends form and function; as an example of cohesive screenwriting, it needs trimming. Along the simultaneously meandering and high-strung journey to what passes for a conclusion (and a trite one at that), however, the film delivers thrills that mostly make up for its shortcomings, anchored by Chalamet’s riveting performance. Whatever else may happen, he serves like a winner.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
A24; Josh Safdie; Marty Supreme movie review
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