The historical inception of table tennis has frequently concealed the extent of its cultural and political significance. The game was conceived quite literally as a reduced, parlor-friendly incarnation of lawn tennis—a playful adaptation designed to bring the elegance of the court into the confines of the drawing room. Yet despite its seemingly modest beginnings, one of table tennis’s most consequential contributions to modern sport was its introduction of the concept of spin—an innovative technique that would later transform competitive play across numerous racquet sports. Beyond the physical realm, this dainty game acquired astonishing geopolitical resonance. The phrase “ping-pong diplomacy” entered the global lexicon after table tennis became the unexpected catalyst for diplomatic thawing between the United States and China during the Nixon era. Within Josh Safdie’s new film *Marty Supreme*, faint gestures to this symbolic past appear, though the director’s fascination gravitates more powerfully toward the sport’s role as a social nexus for misfits and outsiders dwelling within the gritty, bohemian maze of the 1950s Lower East Side.
Loosely inspired by the true-life saga of Jewish-American table tennis prodigy and hustler Marty Reisman, *Marty Supreme* begins with a brash intensity that signals the viewer is in for an uneasy ride. The term “loosely,” however, deserves particular emphasis, unless of course one were to discover the historical Reisman possessed the same abrasive charisma and moral deficiencies that define his cinematic surrogate, Marty Mauser, played with feverish impatience by Timothée Chalamet. Safdie veterans will immediately recognize the faint echo of the brothers’ earlier antiheroes—Robert Pattinson’s desperate criminal in *Good Time* and Adam Sandler’s manic jeweler in *Uncut Gems*. As in those films, the protagonist is a creature of compulsion, propelled through a maze of self-sabotage and adrenaline, where each selfish decision becomes the pretext for meeting yet another eccentric figure against the pulsating backdrop of a meticulously filmed New York.
Chalamet’s Mauser is simultaneously magnetic and infuriating—endearing enough to keep our attention yet perpetually on the verge of moral collapse. Like his Safdie predecessors, he’s motivated by an almost delusional belief in breakthrough: convinced that with just enough money, just one more hustle, he could ascend to table tennis glory. The film’s central act morphs into a feverish quest narrative as Mauser scrambles to raise funds for a plane ticket to Tokyo, his obsession anchored in the need to challenge his Japanese nemesis, Koto Endo—portrayed by Koto Kawaguchi, who in real life is a Deaf champion of the sport. Each poor choice escalates his ruin, fracturing his relationships with friends, family, and lovers, all of whom become collateral damage in his pursuit of championship self-validation.
The Safdies, perhaps more than any other contemporary filmmakers, understand the anatomy of the self-destructive ambitionist—the person whose hunger for transcendence repeatedly drags them into squalor. They have an uncanny ability to extract moments of both grotesque comedy and genuine pathos from their doomed protagonists. In *Marty Supreme*, this tradition continues as Chalamet embodies Mauser with a peculiar blend of arrogance and fragility. Through the affectations of a pencil-thin mustache and exaggerated brows, Chalamet builds a persona that should repel but intriguingly attracts: a hustler who might have been insufferable were it not for the trace currents of charisma that keep the viewer from outright contempt.
Surrounding Mauser is an ensemble of equally vivid characters, a gallery of personas oscillating between satire and sincerity. Gwyneth Paltrow lends brittle elegance to the role of a faded film star clinging to the vestiges of celebrity; her husband, an unpleasant business magnate performed a bit woodenly by Kevin O’Leary (recognizable to television audiences as “Mr. Wonderful” from *Shark Tank*), adds a note of cynical opulence to the film’s New York landscape. More unexpected delights come courtesy of Tyler Okonma—better known as Tyler, The Creator—who enters the fray as a rival ping pong hustler, while cult auteur Abel Ferrara appears as an almost parodic version of the gangster archetypes he himself once mythologized. Yet, despite these notable supporting turns, the film’s gravitational center remains firmly anchored to Chalamet’s Mauser.
As a cinematic experiment, *Marty Supreme* evokes a paradoxical sensation of both mastery and stagnation. The Safdies have built a reputation on kinetic storytelling and the pitiless exposure of human folly, but here an air of creative repetition creeps in. There is no artistic crime in revisiting familiar themes—indeed, many great directors have achieved transcendence through variation—but in this case, the recurrence feels more like regression than refinement. By comparison, films such as Josh O’Connor’s subtler *The Mastermind*, which also explores the unspooling psyche of an antihero, exhibit greater novelty within similar terrain. Chalamet gives a disciplined, psychologically precise performance, excavating layers of delusion and self-justification, but his efforts cannot entirely obscure the fact that we’ve witnessed near-identical narratives rendered with greater urgency in *Good Time* and *Uncut Gems*.
Furthermore, the extended runtime—approaching two and a half hours—dilutes the momentum that previously gave the Safdies’ work their electric edge. What once felt like an unbroken sprint through chaos now unfolds at times like a controlled drift. The film’s only remarkable departure from the directors’ prior formula resides in its conclusion, which also happens to be its least convincing component. While table tennis sequences pepper the film with rhythmic intensity, the climactic bout peters out emotionally after a preceding humiliation that leaches tension from the final match. Had the film closed on that moment of wounded pride, its commentary on failure and obsession might have resonated more deeply. Instead, the narrative marches on toward a more conventional sports-movie finale—formulaic, arguably kinder than the Safdies’ usual fare, and consequently far less memorable.
This film also marks an intriguing moment of divergence within the Safdie brotherhood. Josh helms *Marty Supreme*, while Benny directs *The Smashing Machine*, a portrait of UFC fighter Mark Kerr, designed as a prestige vehicle for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Despite existing as separate ventures, the films mirror each other in tone and conception: both are A24-produced, set within historically vivid sports milieus, fronted by globally recognized stars, and curiously fascinated by Japan. And, interestingly, both culminate in finales that feel more deflated than cathartic. Between the two, *Marty Supreme* sustains greater narrative propulsion—it still crackles with tension and forward motion—but even here, one senses a guiding assumption that perhaps misjudges the source of the Safdie allure. Their truest gift has never been sportsmanship or spectacle, but rather the ruthless psychological if-then experiments of human desperation.
Ultimately, the film poses an unspoken question about the contemporary direction of its creators. Perhaps dramatizing a gambler’s moral uncertainty yields more intrigue than chronicling an athlete’s discipline. Perhaps moral weakness, addiction, and self-deception are simply the Safdies’ chosen instruments. Yet watching them soften their lens, offering characters reprieve rather than downfall, feels counterintuitive to the very ethos that once invigorated their cinema. To witness these architects of cinematic anxiety adopt a gentler touch is, paradoxically, to lose a measure of their distinctiveness.
*Marty Supreme* opens in theaters on December 25, 2025—a holiday release that invites audiences to unwrap a film teeming with ambition, unease, and a kind of erratic beauty. Whether one views it as a masterwork of character study or a retread of earlier glories, it provides an absorbing, if imperfect, meditation on ego, obsession, and the peculiar alchemy of competition that makes even a flickering ping pong ball feel momentous.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/828746/marty-supreme-movie-review
