{"id":318845,"date":"2025-12-01T17:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/318845\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:55:07","slug":"josh-safdies-kinetic-spin-on-the-sports-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/318845\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Safdie’s Kinetic Spin on the Sports Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBuilt like a two-by-four with acne scars, freckles and a pencil mustache, Marty Mauser is simultaneously blessed and cursed with absurd quantities of unearned self-confidence. The movies have rarely given us such an entitled underdog, and it\u2019s both mesmerizing and maddening to watch this arrogant table-tennis prodigy ricochet from high to low for nearly two and a half hours. In the defining performance of his still-burgeoning career, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a> \u2014 aka \u201cMarty Supreme<\/a>\u201d \u2014 makes you want to believe in this instantly iconic character too \u2026 even if sometimes you also want to strangle him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe year is 1952, and hardly anybody (apart from Marty) takes \u201cping-pong\u201d seriously. Few would even call it a sport. But Marty is convinced that table tennis is his life\u2019s calling, hustling for a chance to prove it over the course of 149 incredibly stressful, undeniably exhilarating minutes. Within that rip-roaring running time, director Josh Safdie<\/a> volleys audiences from the grotty tenements of New York\u2019s Lower East Side \u2014 the Jewish neighborhood Marty calls home \u2014 to a swanky room at the Ritz hotel in London, to a climactic match in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

\n\tLoosely inspired by midcentury table-tennis sensation Marty Reisman, a slender showman known as \u201cthe Needle,\u201d Chalamet\u2019s character is the most charismatic person in any room. Eyes blazing beneath a bushy unibrow, his cover-boy allure only slightly muted by geek-chic specs and made-up blemishes, Marty seems to have four arms and an extra brain. How else to explain the speed of his return, whether in table tennis or everyday conversation? Marty\u2019s got the moves, but is beaten all the same. Instead of graciously accepting defeat, he demands a rematch with the Japanese champion Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), whose cool discipline and focus seem the polar opposite of Marty\u2019s atomic-meltdown energy.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor 15 years, Josh Safdie and his older brother, Benny, were the demented cooks behind such almost-real-time anxiety-attack thrillers as \u201cGood Time\u201d and \u201cUncut Gems.\u201d Now, in his first solo directing effort since 2008\u2019s \u201cThe Pleasure of Being Robbed,\u201d Josh answers which half of the duo is the better filmmaker. Earlier this year, Benny (a gifted actor) released \u201cThe Smashing Machine,\u201d an Oscar-baiting wrestling biopic that tapped out almost immediately, while Josh put his brain together with screenplay collaborator Ronald Bronstein and came away with one of the year\u2019s few masterpieces.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile putatively packaged as a sports movie, \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d uses the compulsive drive of its Jewish American wunderkind to mirror the country\u2019s post-war emergence as a global superpower \u2014 in which national pride, capitalism and good, old-fashioned moxie are unfettered by the slightest self-doubt. Where others might suffer an inferiority complex or the impostor syndrome, Marty has blind faith in his ability to return whatever life serves him. The guy can spin his way out of practically any predicament.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter strategically world-premiering at the New York Film Festival, \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d makes its way into awards season, having already drawn fawning comparisons to J.D. Salinger\u2019s 1951 novel \u201cCatcher in the Rye\u201d \u2014 though Marty actually has more in common with Ferris Bueller than with Holden Caulfield. Safdie and his decade-older co-writer are children of the 1980s, which explains not only the film\u2019s coked-out intensity (presumably inspired by films such as \u201cSomething Wild\u201d and \u201cAfter Hours\u201d) but also the semi-ironic selection of period-incompatible power anthems so effectively complemented by Daniel Lopatin\u2019s erratic-pulse score.<\/p>\n

\n\tCranked up to 11, the synthesized chimes of Tears for Fears\u2019 \u201cChange\u201d blast straight out of the gate, lending the kind of galvanic kick normally reserved for the nail-biting finale of a sports movie. Marty is a round-the-clock hustler. Working at the family shoe shop, he pretends not to have a client\u2019s desired size in order to upsell her on a more expensive pair, deceiving first the customer and then his boss\/uncle (Larry Ratso Sloman) as he sneaks sometime-girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A\u2019zion) into the backroom for a risky quickie.<\/p>\n

\n\tCue another \u201980s classic, \u201cForever Young,\u201d as Safdie cuts to a \u201cLook Who\u2019s Talking\u201d-style close-up of Marty\u2019s sperm flooding her cervix. It\u2019s a cheeky sequence that forecasts the complications ahead, since Rachel happens to be married to Marty\u2019s neighbor (a Stanley Kowalksi-esque Emory Cohen), even as it reminds that Marty\u2019s entire life has been a contest, starting with the lucky gamete that won the lottery of his own existence. His dad is no longer in the picture, while his mother (Fran Drescher) is something of a con artist too \u2014 like all the film\u2019s characters \u2014 constantly spinning lies to get her son\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe central conceit of \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d is that despite the title character\u2019s preternatural racket skills, hardly anyone respects his near mastery of table tennis. If the equivalent story were set in 2025, Marty might be a video game wizard or a sudoku samurai. Nobody cares, except for the motley collection of gargoyles at the underground table tennis club where he practices \u2014\u00a0one of the many intimate, dark-shadowed spaces enhanced by \u201cSe7en\u201d DP Darius Khondji\u2019s eye-of-the-tornado aesthetic. <\/p>\n

\n\tWithout the moral support of his family, Marty has it tough trying to raise the funds to attend the British Open in Wembley, London. His mom wants him to stick to a real job. His uncle withholds his pay, hoping Marty will stay on as manager. And Rachel (later, once she starts to show) hopes he\u2019ll settle down and take responsibility for their unborn bundle of joy. Instead, Marty grabs a pistol from the shoe-shop desk and demands what he\u2019s owed at gunpoint.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the thing about Marty Mauser: He never takes no for an answer. And because he believes he\u2019s the best, Marty feels justified in achieving his goals by any means necessary \u2014 the rules do not apply. That goes for table tennis (which occupies an inordinate amount of the movie) as well as other pursuits (which yield more indelible drama), like seducing faded movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow<\/a>). Marty has seen none of her movies, but the challenge of wooing her electrifies him.<\/p>\n

\n\tStanding on his hotel bed in a trenchcoat and boxers \u2014 an image that defines this impetuous kid, playing grown-up in a world he only half-understands \u2014 Marty places a call to Kay\u2019s room, fast-talking her into attending his match the next day. We can hear her businessman husband (\u201cShark Tank\u201d panelist Kevin O\u2019Leary, perfectly cast as the smug face of American industry) in the background. Seeing them later at the Ritz\u2019s restaurant, Marty offers to pick up the check for the man he\u2019s cuckolded.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s shameless that way, though some find him charming. That contradiction is Chalamet\u2019s to sell: Whether giving outrageous quotations to journalists (\u201cI\u2019m like Hitler\u2019s worst nightmare\u201d) or defending the \u201chonor\u201d of his assorted mistresses (never mind their marital status), this kid is pure id, a cocky celebrity many want to be \u2014 or be with \u2014 but even more want to punch.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn lieu of glamorous faces and over-recycled character actors (the sort of predictable types we once associated with \u201ccentral casting\u201d), Safdie populates the film with refreshingly authentic-looking individuals \u2014 memorable mugs, like those of his lanky co-worker Lloyd (Ralph Colucci) and paunchy accomplice Dion (Luke Manley), who\u2019d be right at home in the kind of outsider comics drawn by R. Crumb or Harvey Pekar. Paltrow\u2019s a star, but that tracks because she\u2019s playing one. Plus, it takes an actor of her ability to access the compromise and disappointment Kay feels: When Marty thinks he\u2019s scored with her, he\u2019s only half-aware of the game she\u2019s playing with her callous spouse.<\/p>\n

\n\tBack in New York, following Marty\u2019s unimaginable defeat in London, Abel Ferrara appears as a scuzzy street-level gangster who entrusts Marty and his taxi-driving best friend Wally (Tyler Okonma) with his near feral dog. A master improviser, Marty sees it as yet another get-rich-quick scheme, though this one comes with potentially lethal repercussions. Over the course of his career, Safdie has given us no shortage of endearingly flawed antiheroes. In \u201cUncut Gems,\u201d Adam Sandler\u2019s character had no idea how close he was cutting it. For those who experienced that film\u2019s shock ending, \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d assumes an extra dose of danger.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter losing to Koto in London, Marty must get to Tokyo to recapture the title \u2014 to protect his ego, if nothing else. Doing so will take every whisker of ingenuity he has, along with the help of both women in his life. In A\u2019zion\u2019s hurricane-force Rachel, Marty meets his match: a woman who thinks every bit as quickly on her feet as he does, fooling even him at times. Through it all, Marty remains a fundamentally callow character. More than his pride, Marty\u2019s self-centered immaturity is the source of his hubris, and seeing him humbled (with a wooden paddle, no less) proves an especially satisfying form of schadenfreude.<\/p>\n

\n\tAre we rooting for him to win, or hoping this whirlwind of triumphs and humiliation might cure Marty of his notion that no one else matters? Whereas victory elevated his Japanese rival to national-hero status, it\u2019s all those setbacks that ultimately make Marty a better man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Built like a two-by-four with acne scars, freckles and a pencil mustache, Marty Mauser is simultaneously blessed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1542,43,43423,43424,44,44487,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-318845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-gwyneth-paltrow","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-josh-safdie","11":"tag-marty-supreme","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-timothu00e9e-chalamet","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}