Continuing the trend of biopics with A-list actors that perhaps aren’t interesting or important enough to warrant such a big-budget production, the Timothée Chalamet-led Marty Supreme (Dune, Beautiful Boy) is among them. The story is based loosely on a period of American table tennis player Marty Reisman’s life. If you’ve never heard of Marty Reisman, you aren’t alone. He lived a very unremarkable life, one that is far from the kind of role that would require one of the best working actors to spend time on during the peak of his career. This wasn’t a story about the Marty Supreme. This was about creating a character that Chalamet could lead to his first Best Actor Oscar win, which I believe will happen.
Director Josh Safdie, whose film Uncut Gems almost earned Adam Sandler an Oscar nomination while also helping Robert Pattinson earn a number of award nominations in Good Time, this time uses two-time Oscar nominee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name, A Complete Unknown) as his vessel, using the actor’s versality to take his lead character to the depths of what a person might do once obsessions to become unquenched compulsions.
Chalamet stars as 23-year-old Marty Mauser, a character loosely modeled after American table tennis player Marty Reisman. Set in 1952, Marty is a lanky, bespectacled New Yorker brimming with swagger and unwavering belief in his own brilliance. By day, he works at his uncle’s shoe store—a job he considers far below his talents. In his mind, he’s meant for something far greater: his face emblazoned on magazine covers as the best table tennis player in the world.
Drawing inspiration from the likes of Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, and Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Gangs of New York, Chalamet takes us on a frenetic journey from opening to ending credits. And very much like the characters that DeNiro and Day-Lewis, Chalamet delivers Marty, an irredeemable nobody who will trample whatever and whoever is in his path to become a somebody.
Early on, Marty competes in the British Open. While he had to do some illegal things to get across the ocean to participate in the tournament, he has no problem spending lavishly with money he doesn’t have, but winnings that are expected as he climbs through the bracket towards the finals, where he faces and ultimately is defeated by his rival, Japanese champion Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi). At the event, he dines and wines with Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow – Shakespeare in Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley), a retired actress trapped in an unhappy marriage to a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Marty uses Kay to reach Milton, hoping to get money from him to help pay for his training, travel, and future tournaments. When that doesn’t work, Marty is forced to use his tennis table skills in various ways, including wooing spectators as halftime entertainment at Harlem Globetrotter games.
While Marty may be a phenomenal table tennis player, it doesn’t take long to see that his talent at the table doesn’t translate to decency off it. In Marty’s world, he is the center of gravity. Whatever he wants becomes the only thing that matters, regardless of who gets flattened along the way. He’s a narcissist and relentless self-promoter, forever angling for advantage. Everyone around him becomes a means to an end, including his closest friends, his own mother, and Rachel (Odessa A’zion – Am I OK?, She Rides Shotgun), a childhood friend, a champion who believed in him before he believed in himself. and the soon-to-be mother of his child. Marty leans on her reassurance during moments of doubt, while lacking the capacity or even a hint of desire to provide the same depth of support in return. Her steadiness becomes something he consumes rather than nurtures. While Rachel loves who she believes he can be, Marty only loves how she makes him feel about himself. Marty isn’t forming aren’t relationships. They’re nothing more than leverage. Like Rachel, once someone’s usefulness runs dry, so does his loyalty to them.
The greatest collateral damage comes in the form of the film’s two central women. A’zion delivers a remarkable performance, emerging as arguably the only sympathetic presence in a story crowded with deeply flawed people. Yet the screenplay denies her character any real agency, reducing her to a blindly devoted figure who endures Marty’s cruelty without resistance. Kay fares slightly better. Her relationship with Marty never feels authentic, largely because the script requires her to be naïve and pliable in order for Marty’s ambitions to move forward. In both cases, the women feel less like fully realized characters and more like narrative devices designed to prop him up.
With just a few weeks until the 98th Academy Awards, most say Chalamet is the clear frontrunner, especially after narrowly missing acting’s top prize just last year (A Complete Unknown). In his way are Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), and Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon). All things equal, even if he wasn’t seen as the frontrunner, Chalamet would still be the favorite to win. DiCaprio would be my choice to win, but he already has his Best Actor win (The Revenant). Whether that is fair or not, the Academy tends to look at these things, though the recent wins of Adrien Brody (The Brutalist, 2024), Anthony Hopkins (The Father, 2020), and Mahershala Ali (Green Book, 2018) show that there are exceptions. The release of Sinners occurred so early into the year that Jordan’s remarkable, dual character performance may be too far out of sight and out of mind. Nobody saw The Secret Agent. And, while the Academy would love to finally reward Hawke for nearly 40 years of terrific work, it won’t happen with Blue Moon, a film that pales in comparison to the others.
While the story of Marty Supreme is meh, Chalamet’s performance is worth the price of time. There’s an audience out there that will love this film. There might be a comparable number of people who will think this viewing is a complete waste of their time. I’m in the first group. While the 150-minute runtime certainly was not a selling point, the film did not feel nearly that long. Safdie’s relentless barely allows us a second to breathe. We go from one Marty scene to the next, each more self-serving than the next. His character is not a likable lead character, though Chalamet’s prowess keeps us glued to our seats, sometimes hoping for the worst, while preparing ourselves that the ending will somehow end up neat and tidy, wrapped up in a bow. With all of that said, had I watched this at home rather than the theater, I’m certain there would have been many pauses and breaks. Chalamet is the reason to watch. Without him, Marty Supreme is mediocre, at best.
Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 7.75/10
Directing 7.75/10
Cinematography 7.75/10
Sound 9.75/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
84%
B
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