We all have the fortune (or misfortune) of knowing someone like Marty Mauser.
They are someone who, by all measures, should be insufferable for their unyielding self-importance and rampant faith in their own mythology. They suck the air out of the room, on purpose. And yet, there’s something about them, perhaps a twinkle in their obnoxious eye or an extra spring in their self-serious steps, that makes you believe that the bluster is indeed worth investing in all the rest.
Josh Safdie brilliantly, breathlessly tests the limits of that type of charisma’s potency with Marty Supreme. The film lasers in on Mauser’s (Timothée Chalamet) ambition to prove what he already knows to be true: he is the greatest ping-pong player in the world, and his skill and talent will turn the sport into a global enterprise. However, there are some impediments to that inevitable outcome. Marty’s egotism puts him at odds with an extensive rogues gallery, including his uncle, his mother (Fran Drescher), his potential patron Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), and his wife, actress Kat Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Rachel (Odessa A’zion), who is pregnant with Marty’s child. However insane the obstacles, which quite literally span continents, Marty is steadfast, with a quick mind and quicker tongue that he deploys with boundless enthusiasm to achieve his own legend.
Like all good legends, Marty Mauser requires a compelling journey, heroic or otherwise. Luckily for him, Josh Safdie delivers one, or even several, throughout Marty Supreme’s relentless runtime. He whips his ping-pong-playing protagonist through varying degrees of insane scenarios and sidequests, clearly relishing all the ways he can twist and turn the young man into knots while keeping him relatively unflappable. Marty goes through it, from finagling a fancy hotel suite from world tournament organizers despite being functionally broke to rescuing a lost dog that he plans to use in a haphazardly planned extortion scheme. His circumstances and allegiances constantly shift, leaving little time for introspection or even acclimation. And yet, Marty’s vignettes crackle with excitement, powered by Daniel Lopatin’s charmingly anachronistic score, Safdie’s tight pacing, and his and Ronald Bronstein’s jaw-droppingly bold script that lobs one risky quip after another out of Marty’s smart mouth.
Also key to the success of Marty Supreme’s engagingly chaotic structure is Safdie’s sharp control of how it all maps back to Marty’s overarching desire. They aren’t always as clear-cut as Marty’s participation at the World Championships in London, in which he melts down after losing to a top player from Japan. There are quite a few times where Marty is the not-entirely-unwitting victim of unfortunate timing, crashing against his hubris, like when he and his taxi driver friend Wally (Tyler Okonma) are chased out of a bowling alley by racist bullies Marty tried to swindle. Even better (or worse, at least for Marty) is when he splits the difference and loses track of his goals by falling into a rabbit hole that was initially meant to help him (like the aforementioned dog rescue/extortion attempt).
There is a method to Safdie’s madness, as all of Marty’s tribulations reflect in some way the possibilities and limits of his tunnel-vision approach. It’s clear throughout the story that Marty’s ruthlessness is as core to his identity as his ping-pong talent. Every hijink is an opportunity, and every participant in said hijink is an expendable means to their own end. What keeps Marty from slipping into insufferability is Safdie’s clear-eyed vision of Marty’s flaws. Marty’s circle indulges him for various reasons connected to his unique charisma. However, they push back by publicly excoriating him (as Milton does), wearily exposing the obviousness of his manipulations (as Kat does), or by suffering the consequences of not knowing better (as Rachel does). It creates a fascinating, entertaining dynamic where you want Marty to win because of his sterling talent, but also want him knocked down several deserved pegs.
Naturally, there is some meta overlap between Marty Mauser and his portrayer, Timothée Chalamet. The actor made waves earlier this year when, during his SAG Award acceptance speech for A Complete Unknown, he said he was actively pursuing greatness. In hindsight, that speech reads like an astute and successful primer for his work in Marty Supreme. He fits the role like a glove, leveraging his frenetic physicality to sharply convey Marty’s over-eagerness. His rapid-fire speaking cadence makes Safdie and Bronstein’s punchy dialogue hit like a speeding ping pong ball to the gut. For someone still relatively new in his career, Marty feels like the role that Chalamet was born to play and is easily his best role to date. The fact that it might not be his best performance (I’m partial to Call Me By Your Name and Dune: Part Two) reflects the remarkable power of his screen presence.
As for Marty’s orbit, the performances that surround Chalamet are strong in their own right while bolstering his leading work. The best non-Chalamet performance belongs to Odessa A’zion as Marty’s long-suffering situationship Rachel. A’zion keeps Rachel from slipping into the hapless love interest stereotype by imbuing her with her own sharp comic presence. (Her involvement in the dog rescue plot is indispensable to its zany success.) Gwyneth Paltrow is a lovely, skeptical counterpoint to Chalamet’s snappy bluster, thoughtfully balancing genuine amusement in Marty’s antics with a subtle yearning for the excitement and energy he feeds through her.
Marty Supreme may be one of the year’s best character studies, if not the best. Although Marty Mauser is a singular hot mess, he is also an avatar to help us understand the Martys in our own lives and the best ways to handle (or at least tolerate) them. The film also serves as a helpful window into Timothée Chalamet, Hollywood’s Marty Mauser. Whatever one may think of him, Josh Safdie has laid out the most convincing case to date that Chalamet has the same twinkle in his eye and extra spring in his step to weather the industry’s tectonic shifts to either become, or retain his status as, the biggest movie star of the post-movie-star era. Maybe Marty and Chalamet’s insistence on the potential of their greatness is presumptuous, but they have yet to be proven wrong.
Marty Supreme will debut exclusively in theaters on December 25, 2025, courtesy of A24.
Marty Supreme may be one of the year’s best character studies, if not the best. Josh Safdie has laid out the most convincing case to date that Chalamet has the same twinkle in his eye and extra spring in his step to weather the industry’s tectonic shifts to either become, or retain his status as, the biggest movie star of the post-movie-star era.
A late-stage millennial lover of most things related to pop culture. Becomes irrationally irritated by Oscar predictions that don’t come true.
