One thing is very clear, Timothée Chalamet wants that little gold statue, and he’s going to keep playing pieces of sh** until we give it to him. Look, we didn’t give him the Oscar this year (for good reason, Michael B. Jordan ruled in Sinners), and he’s surely going to go full Leo in The Revenant. I’m here to see where he goes after Sci-fi Sand Movie Part 3. Marty Supreme feels like the product of someone knowing they need drama to get an Oscar, but also really wanting to make an incomprehensible film about ping pong. It’s a wild ride that leads to a tonally mismatched ending and an ultimately unsatisfying payoff.
🎬 Movie Details
Title: Marty Supreme
Director: Josh Safdie
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion
Genre: Drama / Sport
Runtime: 2h 29m
Rating: R
A Review in Brief
Marty Supreme follows—well Marty—a young man who believes he is destined to play ping pong professionally and change the state of the sport forever. Like a lot of male-dominated Oscar bait archetypes, Marty doesn’t give a shit about anyone else, puts a lot of people in danger, and never stops thinking about himself. He’s a compulsive liar, a user, and Chalamet plays him well. The desperation is palpable throughout the whole film even as the stakes fly between middling and life threatening with the rhythm of a ping pong ball (yeah I did it, I’ll take my prize for metaphors now).
Josh Safdie directed this film, and it’s hard not to compare it to his recent creation, Uncut Gems. Marty Supreme and Gems share a lot of DNA. Their protagonists are both pieces of shit with incredible acting performances driving them. Both stories show increasingly bad behavior, but I think the key difference is in pacing and payoff. Uncut Gems didn’t have a dull moment. It felt like a coke-addled ride straight to the end of a gun barrel. The ending was satisfying and shocking.
Marty’s journey lacks the same teeth. Yes, bad things happen to him along the way, but his ultimate end feels saccharine in a way that doesn’t match the film’s tone. I didn’t even realize I was watching the climax until after credits started rolling. Despite the 2.5-hour runtime, I was surprised when the film ended, because I felt like the characters deserved more.
One of the more uncomfortable stretches of the film focuses on a relationship between an older actress, Kay Stone (played by Gwyneth Paltrow), and Marty. Watching their love affair and age gap is tough. Yes, it’s nice to see the shoe on the other gender for once, but it’s still tough to watch the sex scenes between them. After the first time, I felt like the implication would have been enough.
Luckily, the film’s soundtrack is a genuine bright spot. It’s beautifully anachronistic. Somehow the songs of the 1980s fit Marty’s 1950s fever dream better than period music ever could. The sound is almost a reflection of how Marty feels about himself; he’s ahead of his time and trying to change the game. The beats are zippy and fit the film perfectly. I thoroughly enjoyed listening back to it as I wrote this review.
While it is a bit played out to call a film Oscar bait, I’m going to do it anyway. This film combines everything you’d expect for a film to get the Best Picture nomination, and surprise, it did (and eight other nominations). If it had won over Sinners (my five-star review here), I would have rioted in the street. I don’t think it’s a better performance than Chalamet’s Bob Dylan, and I don’t think it was worth taking six years of ping pong lessons for (yup, he did that). We’ll see where it nets out on Sunday, but this film was a miss for me.
If you enjoyed this review, forward it to someone who’d argue with you about the Oscars.
2.5/5 stars – Strong performances and a banger soundtrack can’t save this ping pong period piece
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Ashton Macaulay 