THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
If you don’t know Marty Mauser, I suggest you head to the cinema and get swiftly acquainted. And if you don’t know the Safdie brothers… I would maybe suggest watching a couple of their previous films (Good Time & Uncut Gems in particular) before heading into this one. Marty Supreme, the first solo directorial effort from Josh Safdie, caps off a perfect trilogy with the two aforementioned films, which could be called “Terrible men facing terrible repercussions from terrible decisions but somehow you still root for them.” Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is imbued with both ruthless, amoral ambition, and the foolishness of youth that allows the audience to feel for him even in his darkest moments. And thank god Chalamet pulled it off, because there are some jaw-droppingly unhinged choices to justify.
Marty is a 23-year-old table tennis champion, determined to cement himself as the greatest player in the world. We initially see him trying to get the money together to fly to the London Open, where he has no doubt of his inevitable victory, to the point of promising loans based on prize money he has not yet won. He has a tenuous relationship with his mother (Fran Drescher), is engaging in an affair with his married childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’Zion) and promptly holds one of his fellow employees at gunpoint to get the money needed to attend the championship. Oh, and the film’s title sequence, through an animated sperm-travelling-to-egg (a geniusly hilarious choice) reveals that Marty has knocked Rachel up in the process. Ruthless ambition is hardly a new topic in cinema, but there is a sense that it is being removed from our current societal experience. It also makes this an extremely American film; who can’t achieve their dreams in America? Later, fading actress Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow) tells Marty he may need to start thinking about the possibility he will not achieve his dreams, which he dismisses with the untouchable bravado of his youth.
Robbing his uncle’s store sets off a chain reaction that carries the rest of this breathless film, as Marty’s lies, cheating and general disregard for anyone other than himself put him on a typical Safdie odyssey to his final destination: the world championships in Tokyo. Except first, he must scrounge up $1500 to pay a fine, and find a way to get to Japan. I don’t think it would take a genius to suggest that the Safdies may be inspired by Scorsese’s After Hours, as basically all of their films play out in similar fashion: a character is sent on a wacky, increasingly surreal journey through non-sequitur plotlines until they reach their final destination – somehow. And Marty Supreme truly provides gag after gag after gag.
Firstly, the way Marty speaks is absolutely diabolical. There is a real sense of opening his mouth before his thoughts form, or perhaps he just knows to play up the extremities for the press, but from his interview in London we get gems like “I’m going to finish the job that Auschwitz couldn’t” – regarding his Hungarian friend/rival – which Marty assures the interviewers he is allowed to say as he himself is Jewish – “I’m really the perfect product of Hitler’s defeat.” Later on, Marty states he will “drop a third atomic bomb” on the Japanese when he defeats their star player, Koto Endo. Somehow the full cinema I was in was not screaming with laughter at these nuggets of insanity, making me feel a bit crazy about finding it all so funny. Am I the bad guy?
Some other highlights include the scene where Marty is hiding out in a hotel with his friend Wally (Tyler Okonma a.k.a. Tyler, the Creator) and receives a fine from the International Table Tennis Federation, only to immediately fall through the floor in a bathtub and spark a new adventure involving an old man and his dog. This alone leads to an exploding gas station, a kidnapping and at least two deaths. And is any of this even relevant to Marty’s dream of competing at the World Championships? Absolutely not, but it’s fun as hell to watch play out. You definitely cannot predict where this film is heading next.
Another important aspect is Marty’s impromptu relationship with Paltrow’s Kay Stone, a 1930s movie star attemption to make a Broadway comeback, although the only comeback she really gets is Marty taking her from behind in the shower. The Safdies always make unusual & inspired casting choices, so rescuing Paltrow from Marvel fatigue to have her essentially play herself transplanted to the 1950s is a great move. Also in the realm of weird casting, her arsehole business magnate husband Milton Rockwell is played by Canadian Dragon’s Den star Kevin O’Leary, who turns out a great performance as Marty’s slimy, transactional pseudo-benefactor. I guess casting someone who has been method acting the role since birth can pay off. As much as she has been memed to death for her vagina candles and jade eggs, Paltrow reminds us that yes, she was a great actress in the 90s and 00s, and yes, she does get eaten out by Timothée Chalamet in Central Park in this film. But she is another footnote in Marty’s quest for greatness, offering only the promise and subsequent loss of aid.
And what of Rachel and her aforementioned pregnancy? Though Marty may reject the idea that he could be the father – after all, he always pulls out – we know from the opening titles that it is definitely his baby, which looms over the film. After Marty reaches Japan and discovers he is not allowed to compete in the championships, he challenges Endo to one last exhilarating game, and here’s where the crux is. After seeing Marty lie, steal and cheat his way to Japan (including being spanked by a 70-year-old Canadian), we realise it was truly never about the money. Marty loves the game, and he loves the adulation; fame and fortune was only ever a bonus. It puts him in a different place to Good Time’s Connie or Uncut Gems’ Howard, who seem much more motivated by finance and the flash of wealth. Marty is solely there for himself, his pride and his legacy. And when he returns to the US, we get a big new question: what next?
The film ends with him returning to Rachel (whom he left in hospital after being shot, so not exactly the height of romance) and meeting his child. There is a strong shade of Clockwork Orange in this (the original, superior novel ending, not the film version taken from the cannibalised US edition). After a symphony of ultraviolence and failed reform, Alex starts to think about his future, settling down with a wife and having a child, and there is a sense of a phase in his life ending as he grows up and calms down. For Marty, this is also true: he has proven, to himself and the world, that he is the best at the game, and now he has a new journey of fatherhood to embark on. But can he truly leave behind the thrilling life he was leading and step into his parental duties with a woman he consistently mistreated? The tone seems to suggest an optimistic finale, but one can never be so sure.
Whatever happens at the Oscars this year, it’s clear that Chalamet has already cemented himself as one of our greatest film stars, and if the fullness of my cinema is to be believed, he has a magnetism that will attract fans for years to come. Do I want him to lift the golden trophy in March? Honestly yes, although I think he will have tough competition with Leonardo DiCaprio in the mix, and the Academy famously likes to make men wait years for their glory (and then award them for the wrong film). But this feels like the right film – last year’s A Complete Unknown was good, but I’m over biopic roles getting an easy win. This would not be an easy win, for an original, unhinged and unconventional film. A film which would never work in a million years if it didn’t have Chalamet’s performance at the centre of it. So whilst the campaign may be annoying, and the interviews are possibly insufferable, I think we should give that weird little man his flowers. Anyone with the power to make their beauty shine through acne makeup and a monobrow might just be a creature from another world.
Director: Josh Safdie
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Odessa A’Zion, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin O’Leary
Runtime: 150m
Certificate: 15
Image: Central Pictures, A24