Marty Supreme Movie Review: To say this movie is about table tennis wouldn’t do it justice. To say it’s about ping pong wouldn’t do it justice. Because this Josh Safdie film jumps and spins, burns and smashes like the furious pings and pongs of sports. But none of this would matter without Timothée Chalamet.
If Chalamet has been flexing some metaphorical muscle since Marty Supreme came along, it’s now clear that the talented actor has good reason. Chalamet sheds the evocative vulnerability suggested by his slender figure and handsome appearance to give us a young man whose ambition and talent will burn down anything that stands in his way, who is supremely certain that he is destined for greater things, and who is not afraid to wear his desperate hunger on his sleeve.
Through it, Safdie, with frequent collaborator and co-writer Ronald Bronstein (though less his brother, Benny Safdie), tells a story of 1952 New York, where many walls stood between its upper levels and a Jewish boy from the Lower East Side waiting to cross, like Marty Mauser. If Marty puts it all on the line, begging, borrowing, stealing, taking risks, and publicly humiliating himself to achieve his “destiny,” the film leaves you wondering if there is another way.
Of course, Marty can survive, as his mother, an uncle who finances them, and the other members of the close-knit Jewish community are doing, on small businesses and odd jobs. But as Marty tells his childhood friend and occasional lover Rachel (A’zion), who is among the people he treats badly, “I have a purpose. If you think it’s some kind of blessing, it’s not. It means I have an obligation to accomplish something very specific.” Instead, she tells the eight-months-pregnant Rachel, who just finished telling her the baby is hers, “I don’t even know if you have a purpose.”
At another point, Marty surprises a group of journalists before the British Open Championships by saying of a fellow table tennis player and Auschwitz survivor, Kletzki (Röhrig): “I will do to him what Hitler couldn’t.” Don’t worry, Marty adds, he can tell because he’s also Jewish.
That insight is far from frivolous. When a wealthy businessman named Rockwell (played by The Shark Tank’s appropriately sharky O’Leary), who can make or break Marty’s career, condescendingly tells Kletzki that his son died saving Jews like him in the war, Marty pointedly asks, “Wasn’t the Russians the ones who liberated Auschwitz?” Rockwell has to admit that his son died “somewhere” in the war.
Paltrow plays Kay, Rockwell’s movie star ex-wife, with the easy, intelligent sensuality that now surrounds the actor. Kay is the only one who sees Marty for who he is, but allows herself to be courted by him; He doesn’t mind a few games in the hay, but with his own interests firmly in sight.
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There are a couple of other interesting people up for roles that aren’t much but make an impact (including rapper Tyler the Creator and writer Pico Iyer). As Marty’s great Japanese rival, true table tennis star Koto Kawaguchi steps in, offering a dignified but fierce contrast to the American’s brashness. However, it’s disappointing that the movie suggests that it’s a walk in the park for Marty to come and defeat the reigning world champion without any real practice or real passion for the game.
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Within this madness of Marty, some scenes stood out for their sheer audacity. One of them involves a dog, a seedy motel, a crashing bathtub, and a leaking gas pump. The dog keeps coming back in surprising ways.
Just like Chalamet. If all sport is war except the shooting, this guy is fully prepared. The Academy better pay attention.
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Marty Supreme film director: Josh Safdie
Marty Supreme movie cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Tyler the Creator, Géza Röhrig, Koto Kawaguchi, Pico Iyer, Kevin O’Leary
Marty Supreme movie: 4.5 stars