Marty Supreme

Spoilers!

There's plenty to discuss regarding 2025's MARTY SUPREME, but in the end it all boils down to whether you are willing to spend two and one-half with an unrepentant asshole.  An opportunistic, selfish, irresponsible, manipulative, larcenous, dishonest, and stubborn young man who lets nothing stand in the way of achieving his goal of fame and its spoils.  Far beyond mere chutzpah.  Some viewers may cite the very last scene, where our antihero appears to have found a conscience and a heart.  I didn't buy it. Nothing in director/co-writer Josh Safdie's movie or Timothee Chalamet's performance suggested that the character would arrive at such an enlightening, at least not without some strings attached.  An angle for him.

The advance word was that MARTY SUPREME was another loud, frantic, and relentless New York drama ala GOOD TIME and UNCUT GEMS from the Safdie stable.  Eh, sometimes.  Not a sustained migraine like the earlier movies.  Though this time Josh went solo, away from his bro Ben, who directed his own movie, THE SMASHING MACHINE the same year.  At least Josh didn't go all Ethan Coen.  I'll get back to you on Ben.  

Marty Mauser dreams of becoming the world champion table tennis player.  He will correct you if you call it "ping pong."  To get to the British Open Marty will rob his uncle - his boss at a shoe store - of $700, money he insists was owed to him.  For the next several months he will travel the world with the Harlem Globetrotters, running a halftime act of trick shots and such.  He will somehow con enough people to allow his accommodation in luxury hotels.  Along the way he has an affair with a former Hollywood star named Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) and meets her business mogul husband Milton Rockwell (Shark Tank panelist and non-actor Kevin O'Leary, ideally cast), who owns a pen company.  To whom he perhaps foolishly turns down an opportunity to play in (and throw) an exhibition match in Tokyo.  Pride is a stinger.

When Marty finally returns to New York he'll learn that his married girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A'zion) is carrying his child, whose paternity of course he denies.  From here the movie will go off on a wild odyssey as Marty attempts just to survive, hustling anyone at any time.  Unwisely, one of them is a mobster named Ezra Mishkin (Film director Abel Ferrara, also nicely cast) with a beloved dog named Moses.  Eventually, Marty will have to humble himself and suffer some much deserved humiliation to reclaim his ticket to Tokyo.

Yes, Marty does face some music and hardship, but not nearly enough.  Amoral schemers like him can make intriguing subjects.  I didn't expect the kid to be a saint.  I understand the character, based on a real life guy is meant to be a symbol for capitalism, for the American Dream.  For unchecked ambition and all that.  And Chalamet does good work, creating an engaging little shit who never matured past a seventh grader extorting lunch money from his friends.  This lack of development is probably not uncommon among the titans of the business world.  Or the entertainment industry.  Or in politics.

I would've preferred Marty get some comeuppance at the end.  We're back to that final scene, where our protagonist breaks down and cries.  It rang false to me.  Safdie and co-screenwriter Ronald Bronstein's tacked on effort to give Marty Mauser some soul.  Feels hollow after the character "wins" during the climax.

MARTY SUPREME is long but never dull.  Safdie gives this plenty of momentum and color but it suffers from deja vu at almost every turn.  The director quotes plenty of influences.  To me there was a little of many luminaries to be found here.  Even a little Coens Brothers in moments.  But Josh's use of of '80s tunes (oooh, the clever anachronisms!) was clumsy and downright obnoxious.  I do have to say that composer Daniel Lopratin's cribbing of Tangerine Dream (mainly from RISKY BUSINESS) makes for an interesting score.