Marty Supreme Review: Historic NYC Takes a Paddling

Hollywood loves a punchable face. From Terry-Thomas to Justin Long, every generation has that one actor who deserved a comeuppance. That’s not a bad thing – they excel as guy in over his depth who the audience relishes watching dig a deeper hole for himself. With Marty Supreme, that title may have been handed over to Timothée Chalamet for his endlessly entertaining depiction of Marty Mauser, a guy who is hurtling toward a reckoning.

After years of working as a duo, filmmaking siblings Josh and Benny Safdie went their separate ways for two sports films, and they are works of seemingly deliberate contradiction set against each other. Benny’s biopic of MMA star Mark Kerr, The Smashing Machine, was a gentle depiction of a brutal sport. Josh, by contrast, finds the physicality and drama in pingpong, of all things. Both athletes face their greatest personal struggles due to a make-or-break tournament in Japan – for Kerr, his 2000 comeback bout for Pride Fighting Championship, while for Marty it’s a demonstration match in postwar Tokyo. After all, there was a brief period in the mid-20th century when table tennis was a major international sport, and Mauser knows he’s its next big thing.

Josh and his longtime co-writer Ronald Bronstein were broadly inspired by the real-life antics of multi-time world champion Marty Reisman, but it’s really another opportunity for Safdie to observe the weirdos of his beloved New York. As with Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme is a period piece, but Chalamet isn’t just imitating Adam Sandler’s teeth-grinding performance as odds junkie Howard Ratner. While both are ruled by unconscionable ego, Marty is a weaselly coward at heart, his hubris allowing him to believe that nothing is his fault. Not getting his girlfriend, Rachel (Odessa A’Zion), pregnant, not getting fellow pingpong hall hustler Wally (Tyler Okonma) into endless life-endangering trouble, and not what happens when he barrels into the orbit of the Rockwells – industrialist Milton (Kevin O’Leary) and faded yet still glamorous movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Patrow). Everyone gets trampled by Marty in his quest to be recognized as the best in the world, but in typical Safdie fashion he’ll trip over his own feet.

If there’s a meaningful comparison to be made between the Safdies and their respective solo films, it’s in their shared use of soundtracks and needle drops: Benny edited period-accurate hits against the flow of the action, creating a strange cinematic polyphony. Josh’s selections are in a more traditional harmony with the story, but he’s not bound to the era, throwing in New Order, Peter Gabriel, and Daft Punk as the mood strikes him. It’s a decision seemingly based more on the cool factor than on adding anything to the contemporary environment, and one can’t help but wish that he’d found period-accurate music that worked with his story.

However, that doesn’t distract from Chalamet’s bulldozer of a performance. It is, to a certain extent, one-note, but that’s purposeful. Marty is a man with no introspection: If he had any, then he wouldn’t get into all those life-threatening scrapes. He can’t listen to anybody, whether it’s warnings from a local mobster (a perfectly feral Abel Ferrara) or a brush-off from Kay. Paltrow’s depiction of a former matinee idol carries a little bit of Marion Davies, a little bit of Glenda Farrell, and is the real foil for Marty. There’s a moment when she lets the applause of the audience wash over her and it’s clear she’s just as much of a fame junkie as her obnoxious lover.

But she’s still nothing compared to the irksome, arrogant Marty, and Chalamet clearly relishes this opportunity to play against his modern heartthrob persona. Win or lose, you’ll still kind of want Marty to take a punch to the schnozz. But at least you’ll understand why he’s that way.

This article appears in December 26 • 2025.