In 1952, working-class New Yorker Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) dreams of becoming the world table-tennis champion, and spies business opportunities in his greatness.
“Marty Supreme: Made in America” is the legend inscribed on the orange spheres that wannabe sporting hero Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) plans to take to market as a snazzy alternative to plain old white ping-pong balls. Well, director and co-writer (with Ronald Bronstein) Josh Safdie has here made a great American picture.
Set in the early ’50s and loosely inspired by real-life table-tennis player Marty Reisman, Marty Supreme takes themes of big business, national pride and identity, the American Dream, ethnicity, class, privilege and power, and serves them with speed and spin. Two-and-a-half hours streak by in a blur of overlapping dialogue, serrated cutting and sweaty close-ups, as Marty first establishes his credentials at the British Open and then sets his sights on the World Championship in Tokyo. Sports movie? Sure, but only in the way that Scorsese’s Raging Bull or The Color Of Money are sports movies. This is more character study, portrait of America and scrutiny of the human condition than clichéd, triumph-of-the-underdog crowd-pleaser.
There’s a giddy messiness and electrifying volatility to the crazed plotting…
Energetically shot on grainy, desaturated 35mm by expert cinematographer Darius Khondji, and powered — anachronistically, thrillingly — by ’80s tunes and a shimmering, surging electro score by Daniel Lopatin that sounds part inspirational John Hughes movie, part cosmic mysticism and part John Carpenter menace, Marty Supreme is also not your usual handsomely staid period drama. There’s a giddy messiness and electrifying volatility to the crazed plotting, as Marty turns to hustling, thieving and even ransoming a stolen dog (the robbed man played by arthouse filmmaker Abel Ferrara, no less!) in order to secure cash for his Tokyo trip.
Here is a rampantly egocentric con artist who frequently says and does reprehensible things, like refusing to accept that he’s impregnated Rachel (Until Dawn‘s Odessa A’zion), the childhood friend he’s schtupping behind her husband’s back. Or stealing a necklace from washed-up Hollywood star Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow), who he’s also sleeping with behind her husband’s back. In the second instance, said hubby is tycoon Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), the very man whom Marty is urging to finance his business ideas.
Yep, Marty is a dick. But a likeable dick, Chalamet never losing the viewer. In a film of rousingly intense performances (right down to all the grizzled non-actors who inhabit bustling New York), the star is the standout, larger than life despite keeping everything coiled and contained. When Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ plays on the soundtrack, you might recall that this is an actor who’s openly stated that he’s in “pursuit of greatness” and desires to win an Oscar. This could be his moment.
Josh Safdie follows brother Benny’s The Smashing Machine with his own sports biopic, of sorts. This uncut gem dazzles, from its spotlit table-tennis contests to its dark portrait of American dreams.