Film review: ‘MARTY SUPREME’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
‘So, what the hell is Mary Supreme’ you ask. The title of this film gives no indication of anything except that a mercurial figure named Marty might be involved. This quirky, chaotic, historical and sometimes hysterical comedy/ drama from director Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems) is very loosely based on the life of flamboyant American table tennis champion Marty Meisner but more than anything it’s a show piece for its star Timothee Chalamet.
Set in the early 1950’s, the film depicts the life of the incredibly cocky, self-centred scam artist, hustler and aspiring table tennis champ Marty Mouser (Timothee Chalamet). With his girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) pregnant and a stultifying life as a manager in his uncle’s shoe store threatening to claim him, Marty maniacally pursues a goal of becoming world table tennis champion. Despite being the US’s best player, Marty’s dream of table tennis immortality is constantly derailed by bizarre chance events, a superior Japanese player (Koto Kawaguchi), vicious enemies and more often than not, his own misguided ambition and narcissism.
Chalamet is terrific here. Looking a little like a younger, healthier Robert Crumb with a touch of Groucho Marx, he makes Marty convincingly sneaky, street smart and morally ambiguous. It’s a bracing performance as Marty leaps back and forth from being infuriatingly selfish and tactless to inspiringly resourceful and tenacious. Chalamet is much more at home playing this sort of precocious, cunning rogue than he is as a sci fi action hero in a film like Dune or pretty much any other role he has undertaken so far. He’s ably supported by a wonderfully idiosyncratic cast that includes Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay a former movie star and unexpected hookup for Marty, Fran Drescher as Marty’s mother Rebecca, a grizzled Abel Ferrara as local mobster Ezra Mishkin, an unrecognisable Penn Gillette as a gun-totin’ farmer and Tyler the Creator as Marty’s scamming buddy Wally.
In depicting Marty’s strange adventures, Safdie weaves into the story references to the complexities and contradictions of the post war world such as the relationship with Japan and the forces taking charge in the US, including nefarious corporate overlords. Social commentary and in some cases logic, however, take a back street to the film’s wild energy and comic inventiveness a little like Damien Chazell’s wonderfully bonkers Babylon. Those who demand strict realism in films and who fixate on minor points of internal logic be warned as this movie employs plenty of poetic licence with Marty miraculously escaping deadly situations and avoiding legal consequences for circumstances that would land most people in prison for a very long stretch.
Safdie does a remarkable job recreating the 1950s New York milieu and particularly the cluttered, chaotic street culture from which the fast-talking Marty emerges. This does mean, however, that the film has a few too many New York-style shouting and squabbling matches and stereotypical dirtbag guys in white singlets lurking around dingy tenements.
Despite being set in the 50’s, the soundtrack to this film is full of 80’s synth music including New Order and Public Image Ltd. This would seem pretty odd in most 1950’s period films but this anachronism feels appropriate in an offbeat movie like this.
Those who don’t warm to this film’s idiosyncrasies and its manic arrogant antihero may find Marty Supreme a difficult watch but those who embrace the character, his frenzied adventures and his relentless quest for self-actualisation will have a ball.
Nick’s rating: ****
Genre: Drama/ Action/ Comedy/ Historical (1950’s).
Classification: M.
Director(s): Josh Safdie.
Release date: 22nd Jan 2026.
Running time: 148 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.