by Nataliia Serebriakova
Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’Zion, Tyler Okonma, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher
Intro:
… blends manic energy with unexpected elegance …
New York, 1950s. A young table tennis prodigy, Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), works as a sales assistant in a shoe store. A girl named Rachel (Odessa A’zion) comes into the shop asking for a refund. Two minutes later, Marty is having passionate sex with Rachel in the stockroom, piled high with shoeboxes. And in the opening credits, hundreds of sperm cells rush toward an egg to the sound of Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ (famously covered by Australia’s own Youth Group in the aughts). The title of that 1980s hit becomes the leitmotif of the entire film by Josh Safdie, which premiered at the New York Film Festival — and stepping on stage, the director announced that he had literally finished editing the film the night before. Still, the two-and-a-half-hour Marty Supreme doesn’t feel rushed.
2025 is the year when the Safdie brothers each released their own sports drama. And while Ben Safdie chose a heavier subject, making a biopic about Mark Kerr — a wrestler still alive today who rose to fame in the 1990s — Josh turned to the 1950s and to a more “intellectual” kind of sport, table tennis, casting today’s reigning Hollywood star Timothée Chalamet in the lead role. Chalamet, who transformed into Bob Dylan last year, had already shown that his performance can be electric. The Safdie brothers, whose films had always been as charged and frantic as possible, each on his own has now carved out a path toward a more polished, Hollywood-ready format. And if Uncut Gems or Good Time were at times uncomfortable to watch because of their sheer intensity, Marty Supreme is still full of twists and turns — just in a slightly less hysterical tone.
Marty dreams big (Dream Big is the film’s slogan): if he plays, he plays to win. So he flies to a championship in Britain, where he boldly arranges for himself a room not in the hostel (where his fellow players stay), but in a five-star hotel. There, his attention is caught by a sophisticated actress in her forties, Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow), whom he seduces with youthful bravado. He also forms a relationship with a ballpoint pen magnate — who happens to be Kay’s husband — and who later becomes his sponsor for a trip to Japan, only to publicly humiliate him.
Marty, socially agile a virtual con artist, steals a necklace from Kay and abandons a pregnant Rachel (the sperm cell did reach the egg after all). Yet when your character is played by Timothée Chalamet, audiences are ready to forgive almost any wrongdoing. Critics have already called Marty his best performance to date, even though his filmography already includes Call Me by Your Name and Dune. And indeed, he delivers the full emotional spectrum — from utter despair to radiant triumph. Such is the life of Marty, the man who decided that the white table tennis ball should be orange, a life of dizzying highs and crushing lows. His character is loosely based on Marty “The Needle” Reisman, a real-life American table tennis champion of the 1950s, famous not just for his skill but also for his love of hustling, high-stakes betting, and flamboyant showmanship.
Josh Safdie wouldn’t be himself if he hadn’t saved a true MacGuffin for fans of his early work: Abel Ferrara in the role of a deranged, brutal mafioso — and owner of a dog that Marty is supposed to look after. Needless to say, Marty loses the dog, which sets off a near-Tarantino-esque chain of events (or something you might just as well imagine in a Coen brothers film).
Marty Supreme ultimately becomes more than just a sports biopic — it is a portrait of obsession, ambition, and self-invention in postwar America. Safdie blends manic energy with unexpected elegance, while Chalamet transforms Marty into both a charmer and a menace. The film may be less abrasive than the brothers’ earlier work, but it is no less hypnotic. In the end, it leaves the audience caught somewhere between admiration and unease — exactly where it wants them to be.
