There’s an argument to be made that Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), the protagonist of Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” could be the father of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), the protagonist of Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2019 cinematic panic attack “Uncut Gems.” Marty and Howard are versions of the same character: Jewish New York City hustlers addicted to risky business; inveterate gamblers who believe that just one more bet is going to pay off.
For this solo directorial outing, Josh Safdie and his longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein, with whom he wrote and edited “Marty Supreme,” continue to mine the same milieu. (Benny headed West for his first solo film, the MMA biopic “The Smashing Machine.”)
“Marty Supreme” is inspired by the real-life characters of the mid-century table tennis scene in New York City (specifically Marty Reisman), and it’s a film designed around the New York City-born and -bred movie star Chalamet.
Many will assume that Marty Mauser is the performance that is most like Chalamet, and it’s clear that there has been some transference between character and actor in the past year, particularly Marty’s cheery braggadocio. But Safdie and Bronstein have a unique ability to pair performer and role, to write to an actor’s perhaps previously untapped potential, as they did with Sandler in “Uncut Gems,” and Chalamet does achieve greatness here, in one of the best performances of his career thus far.
“Marty Supreme” is a breathless, breakneck sprint through the Lower East Side of 1952 (beautifully rendered by legendary production designer Jack Fisk), where Marty holds top dog position in the table tennis scene. His next stop? The world. He steals $700 from his job at his uncle’s shoe store in order to make it to the world championships in London. That’s one of his first big risks — the other being a backroom quickie with his married childhood friend, Rachel (Odessa A’zion, who perfectly matches pitch with Chalamet). A river of consequences and bad decisions cascades from that inciting incident, which we follow with much anxiety and amusement.
In London, Marty seduces a movie star, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), introduces her wealthy husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), an ink-pen impresario, to the untapped market potential of table tennis, and is roundly beaten in the finals by Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), a deaf Japanese player who developed his own method for learning the sport, and displays a savant-like skill that stumps even Marty.
It’s a stroke of genius to cast Canadian businessman O’Leary, best known for the reality show “Shark Tank,” in his first acting role as a rich benefactor. His Rockwell indeed functions as a “shark” for Marty, offering a business arrangement to bring him to Japan for another table tennis tournament, but he’s also a predator ready to devour.
At one point, Rockwell hisses in Marty’s ear, “I’m a vampire,” and it tells us everything we need to know about this capitalist, who drains the life from whatever he can, extracting talent for profit and leaving a carcass behind. It’s the most important thing that Marty and Kay have in common. This level of dealmaking far exceeds the bowling alley bets and small-time street gambles that have shaped Marty’s way of moving in the world, and Rockwell represents the kind of ruthless American capitalism and competition that requires humiliation and subjugation. Marty chooses to participate.
Like Howard, Marty is trying to bend the arc of his own fate, and Safdie and Bronstein throw an unyielding avalanche of chaos at him in order to see how he’ll fight his way through, even as he (and Rachel) make bad decision after bad decision. Yet, witnessing his sublimely stressful journey is an exhilarating pleasure.
Safdie reunites his “Gems” creative team for “Marty,” including cinematographer Darius Khondji, whose camera captures this whirlwind odyssey from Manhattan to Japan and back again with staggering detail and extreme close-ups. Casting director Jennifer Venditti populates the world with all kinds of fascinating faces, both familiar and discoveries, but faces you’re more likely to see on a New York City street than in a Hollywood movie. That Chalamet fits in so well speaks to his versatile qualities as a movie star.
Composer Daniel Lopatin spins an electronic score that hews more hedonistic Reagan-era ’80s than period-specific 1950s, with various songs of these two eras peppered throughout — this anachronistic but era-spanning soundtrack is perfectly attuned to the film’s themes.
“Marty Supreme” is a truly staggering American epic about finally learning that hustle is never going to love you back — even if chasing it can be a thrill, at least for a moment. In this anxiety-riddled portrait of the corrosive nature of American capitalism, sports is merely the vessel, but it’s still the kind of movie that will make you want to stand up and cheer.
Katie Walsh is a critic for Tribune News Service.
“Marty Supreme” — 4 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for language throughout, sexual content, some violent content/bloody images and nudity)
Running time: 2:30
How to watch: In theaters Dec. 25
