Marty Supreme
Small-Ball Smash, Big-Ball Confidence
Credit: A24
Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is a madcap sports-crime thriller: Uncut Gems plus Catch Me If You Can sandwiched between Balls of Fury (if only that escapade were actually good). A spiritual sibling to the Safdie brothers’ signature chaos, this exhilarating opus celebrates immaturity with a more mature—well, less restrained—big-balled confidence. Factor in Timothée Chalamet's funniest performance to date, the pulsing 80's score and breathtaking game points… We’ve got a winner.
The sports sequences in Marty Supreme are superb. Chalamet, Safdie’s latest muse, fully sells the film’s morally-dubious ping-pong prodigy Marty Mauser. Much like his deep dive into Bob Dylan’s artistry, Chalamet trained extensively in ping pong for this film, and it shows—especially in Mauser’s showdowns with his rival, the Japanese table tennis champ, Koto Endo (played by real-life phenom Koto Kawaguchi, a deaf athlete and innately intuitive actor).
Their looming title match is Marty Mauser’s albatross: to compete, he must raise—or steal—a substantial sum. Brimming with youthful egomania, always one step ahead of ruin and ten steps behind wiser options, he’s his own worst enemy…and Chalamet plays him to comedic perfection.
Teetering between humiliation and glory, Chalamet channels DiCaprio’s overconfident, gifted-with-gab hustler from Catch Me If You Can. The 29-year-old actor also echoes his own drive for greatness (as self-described in a viral acceptance speech)—and his performance as the self-absorbed, increasingly desperate Mauser is likely to earn the awards he’s been chasing.
In full-bore Safdie style, Marty Supreme keeps most of its balls in the air. Set in the 50’s, propelled by post-WWII nationalism, rife with self-referential motifs—including predictably bad choices by relentlessly selfish males—it celebrates the anti-hero. Each one of its characters has something to prove: Japanese champ Endo has a title to defend; Mauser and his pals are Jewish, Black, consumed by personal demons, jockeying deviously for their shot. The swaggering cast includes Tyler Okonma (aka Tyler the Creator, in a slick big-screen debut), Gywneth Paltrow (fading starlet), Odessa A'Zion (cunning love interest), Kevin O'Leary (ruthless pen magnate) and Abel Ferrara (gangster dog owner). Some are crafty underdogs; others cruel bullies. All of them amplify Mauser’s escalating opportunism.
Should Mauser’s refusal to grow be compared to the filmmaker’s rehashing of familiar obsessions? Perhaps. Despite enough social context to justify bad behavior, despite occasional redemptive glimmers, despite its 149-minute runtime, the film’s moral POV feels rushed. Even so— This cross-court character study goes beyond table tennis. Amidst the narcissistic exploits, flashes of disarming humanity fuel the drama. And it’s entertaining as hell.
In the end, the frenzy has us applauding far more than the match itself. Winner be damned.
Reviewed at Alice Tully Hall, NYFF 2025, on October 6th.
149 min.
Where to Watch: US theaters on December 25 2025.