OP-ROB RATING: ALL-NBA

Much like an epic ping-pong rally in which each shot puts the opposing player in a progressively precarious situation, “Marty Supreme” is a saga that bounces from one exciting sequence to the next. It’s as loud, brash, arrogant, and oddly likeable as its main character. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is a 23-year-old whippersnapper from NYC who is poised to take over the ping-pong world. It’s 1952. America is at the beginning of a post-war boom economically and culturally, and Marty believes that ping-pong is the next big sport, “this game fills stadiums overseas”, he says. Ping-pong, or table-tennis, is the perfect sport for this character. For Americans, the game has never taken root. It’s a quasi-sport. This kid has big dreams, but poor judgement.

The plot of “Marty Supreme” revolves around money. Marty is a crackerjack shoe-salesman at his uncle’s shop, but treats the job with disdain and seems to have rubbed almost everyone he interacts with the wrong way. So when the time comes for his Uncle Murray (Larry Sloman) to forward a “promised” $700 to fund a trip to the British Open (of ping-pong) in London, the uncle balks. Undeterred, Marty robs the store and sets off. In London, the tournament goes as planned until the final match with a deaf Japanese player named Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi). Endo uses a unique padded racket and an innovative “pen-grip” style to crush Marty and win convincingly in straight sets. This sets up the ultimate goal for our anti-hero: beat Endo in the upcoming World Championship to be held in Tokyo.

However, Marty makes everything difficult for himself. His arrogance and selfishness constantly kneecap his aspirations. This is a fatal flaw for the character. Ping-pong is his passion… but is it really? The guy can’t lock in. He lacks maturity on so many levels. In London, Marty makes the avoidable mistake of ditching the free, yet dingy, accommodations provided by the International Table Tennis Federation and checks into the Ritz. He runs up a Kevin McCallister-sized bill which he fraudulently charges to the ITTF ($1500, ~$18,000 today). This gets him temporarily banned from competing in the World Championships and deeply indebted to the ITTF.

Those are the core plot drivers. Beat Endo. Get the cash needed to pay back the ITTF and fly to Tokyo. There are honest paths for Marty to achieve his goals, but he is not that kind of guy. He embarks on a global promotional tour performing circus-like halftime shows for the Harlem Globetrotters with a Hungarian player named Bela Kletzky (Géza Röhrig), but has his earnings stripped by Uncle Murray on his return to New York. He hustles a large chunk of cash from a group of young men at a New Jersey bowling-joint with the help of his taxi-driver buddy Wally (Tyler the Creator), but blows the getaway. He tries to extort a vicious mobster (Abel Ferrara) for the return of a cherished dog, who Marty comes into possession of through bizarre circumstances, which also fails. He steals a necklace from a past-her-prime movie star named Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) with whom he has a fling in London, only to discover that it is worthless costume jewelry. Poor judgement with a bit of bad luck abound.

In the background of all of this is a girl named Rachel Mizler (Odessa A'zion). We are intimately introduced to her in the opening scene of the movie. She is a childhood friend of Marty’s, and she’s married to a seemingly decent blue-collar type guy named Ira (Emory Cohen). She and Marty are having an affair. Throughout the film, their relationship is one of nearly absolute selfishness on the part of Marty, and complete subservience on the part of Rachel. She truly believes in Marty, and will go to extreme lengths to support him. The connection between Marty and Rachel underpin the entire movie, opening scene to ending scene, with satisfying results.

“Marty Supreme” has so much going on that it would be a slog to summarize the whole thing. It is a two-and-a-half-hour film, but has essentially zero lulls. The style of the movie is gritty and fast-paced; it fits neatly into the previous work of the Safdie Brothers (Josh and Benny), whose biggest hits include other NYC stories in “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems”. “Marty Supreme” is a solo effort from Josh Safdie, and it would be interesting to compare the differences to his brother’s solo 2025 film “The Smashing Machine”.

Regardless, the lengthy run-time is made palatable by a few factors: plot dynamism, a killer score and soundtrack, and energetic performances. The heart of the movie is Chalamet. His boyish cockiness is amped up to eleven. This is his movie. Paltrow brings a stabilizing maturity in each of her scenes. And then there is a cornucopia of pitch-perfect performances by mostly non-professional actors. What does Josh Safdie's rolodex look like? Kevin O’Leary (from Shark Tank) is Kay Stone’s husband, he is terrific and plays an important role in the plot. Koto Kawaguchi is a real-life deaf professional ping-pong player. Pico Iyer is a travel novelist who portrays the head of the ITTF. Personally, I was thrilled to see San Antonio Spurs legend George “The Iceman” Gervin as the manager of a ping-pong center that Marty frequents. There are many more of these to mention, and act as both a testament to Safdie’s directing as well as a special element of the movie.

As an overall assessment, what “Marty Supreme” does so brilliantly is examine the nature of ambition. We are drawn to people who beam with self-confidence and aim for lofty goals, even if they are genuinely immoral people. Nothing is sacred to the main character, not even his beloved ping-pong. In this way, we are all a bit like Marty: our interests rise above all else. Principles crumble depending on the situation. In that deeply embedded trait of human selfishness we tend to ravage the virtues, which are the most important aspect of a fulfilling life. At the end of the movie, we get a glimmer of hope that Marty understands that the relentless pursuit of self is a fallacy. Perhaps this arc is what makes us root for an otherwise despicable character.

“Marty Supreme” was released in Japan one week ago, and as I’m writing this review there is a fair amount of buzz around the fact that the movie got completely smoked at the 98th Academy Awards. Nine nominations and zero wins. Most notably was Chalamet losing out on Best Actor. Nit-picking the Academy Awards is not something I intend to do on Op-Rob (heck, I still haven't seen three of the Best Picture nominees). But I must say that “Marty Supreme” was thoroughly enjoyable. I think it has staying power. Of the 7 Best Picture nominees that I did see, it would have been my pick to get the award. If Chalamet goes on to have the rich and prolific film career that is expected, I believe his portrayal of Marty Mauser will be an unmistakable milestone as the breakthrough performance for an all-time great.

On to the categories…

Highlight of the Game: The scene in which Bela recounts his story from Auschwitz. It abruptly pulls us out of the movie and serves to show what true selflessness looks like. Apparently this actually happened. Marty Reisman (the inspiration for Mauser) said he heard the story from a Polish player named Alojzy Ehrlich who survived the death camps. True or not, the scene is beautiful.

Player of the Game: It has to be Chalamet. Though I haven’t seen much of the guy off-screen, I have a sneaking suspicion that his natural personality is not that different from Marty. Should he get docked for that? Is he just really good at playing himself? I think it doesn’t matter. There is not another actor that comes to mind that could offer anything remotely close to what Chalamet brings to the role.

Costly Turnovers: The sequences in Tokyo suffer from an air of unbelievability. This is a problem that plagues most western films that are set in Japan. With the exception of Endo, the Japanese characters act like NPCs and have unrealistic reactions to what is happening on-screen. Knowing even a small amount of the language and culture will reveal how corny it feels. Disappointing given an otherwise rock solid job at depicting a realistic “time and place” elsewhere in the movie.