★★★★ (4 out of 4)
“I know people don’t usually talk like this, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I want to be one of the greats.”
Timothée Chalamet spoke those words with brash enthusiasm (some mistook it as arrogance) after winning a SAG award for portraying the young Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” But he could have been speaking for Marty Mauser, the ping pong wizard he plays with every fiber of his being in “Marty Supreme.” The role is loosely based on real-life table tennis champ Marty Reisman, aka "the Needle" for his quick wit and slender build. Reisman, who died in 2012 at 82, won 22 major table tennis titles from 1946 to 2002, including two United States Opens and a British Open.
In this movie, young Marty doesn’t win shit. It’s the getting there that obsesses Josh Safdie, who superbly wrote and edited with Ronald Bronstein and solo directed without brother Benny, his partner on “Good Times” and “Uncut Gems.” Some snipe that “Marty Supreme” is just “Uncut Gems” with ping pong. Not if you pay attention. For Josh Sadie, “Marty Supreme” is his declaration of independence and, hot damn, he delivers the fireworks.
And Chalamet, who starts at astounding and builds from there, runs the gamut as this broke Jewish kid from New York’s Lower East Side who stops selling shoes for his uncle and rockets off like a born showman into a swaggering future that 1950s America can’t hold. No wonder Daniel Lopatin’s pulsating score adds needle drops from the 1980s, from Peter Gabriel to Tears for Fears. The music is as eager to get ahead as Marty. Safdie makes it feel like the Tasmanian devil in Marty directed the film, all hard-driving hustle that’ll give you whiplash if you can’t keep up.
This is the wildest damn thing Chalamet has ever put on screen.
Marty does everything fast. He talks himself into bed with two women, both married, and plays with such fire by the crafty and captivating Odessa A’zion and glorious glamorpuss Gwyneth Paltrow that you wonder why they haven’t won any awards yet. If Marty is good at foreplay we don’t see it. It’s wham bam and onto to the next table tennis challenge.
It happens soon enough as Marty finagles a trip to London for the world championships. Chalamet has been workshopping his ping pong skills for nearly five years in preparation for channeling Marty. But he meets his match in Endo, a stealth tornado as embodied by Japanese National Deaf Table Tennis Championship Koto Kawaguchi. Your jaw will drop like a tire iron as Endo schools Marty in the reality that he still has a way to go.
Defeat only fuels Marty’s intensity. In London, where he meets and seduces Paltrow’s Kay Stone, a faded 1930s movie star who married rich, Marty hits up her husband, Milton (Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame), to bankroll a rematch with Endo and makes a major enemy. Paltrow shows us what Kay sees in this younger man. In his eyes, she’s still the Hollywood princess, still the prize. And her attempt at an acting comeback on Broadway echoes Marty’s desperation. Paltrow nails every nuance in the role. She’s stunning.
Back in New York, Marty’s fortunes don’t fare much better as A’zion’s Rachel tells him she’s pregnant by him and her loutish husband Ira (Emory Cohen) doesn’t like it a bit. These are down times for Marty as he’s forced to play the clown at halftime of shows for the Harlem Globetrotters, but bravado stays built into his DNA.
The camera of master cinematographer Darius Khondji (“Seven’) races right alongside Marty as he battles to regain ground. The casting work of Jennifer Venditti is off the charts, not just with Tyler Okonma (aka Tyler, The Creator) as Marty’s cohort in petty crime, but there’s also “Bad Lieutenant” director Abel Ferrara as a dog owner who sets off a street chase that explodes with kinetic energy. There’s no detail in this movie, from the costume design of Miyako Bellizi to the vibrant production design of Jack Fisk, that doesn’t radiate authenticity.
Above all there is Chalamet, who gives the kind of performance that gets talked about for years. Is Marty’s heartfelt final scene a redemption or one more identity he’s trying on for size? One thing is for sure: This is the wildest damn thing Chalamet has ever put on screen. And he’s done it in a movie that that lives up to the artistry he and Safdie are using to fuel it. “Marty Supreme” is more than just one of year’s best movies. It’s a powder keg that wants to engulf you. My advice? Let it.