Respected by few, a young Marty Mauser goes through hell in the New York’s Lower and Upper East Side to achieve his ambition of being the best table tennis player in the world.
Directed as his first solo project by Josh Safdie, and co written by Ronald Bernstein, Marty Supreme is a sports dramedy loosely based on the life of the lesser known, outrageous Marty Reisman, who died in 2012 at the age of 81 having lived a life as a hustler and a showman. Set more as an homage rather than a fully correct biopic, Marty Supreme hits on major aspects of his early twenties and runs with the more outlandish and quite frankly, bizarre.
Starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role, this film is set over 9 months in New York in 1952 with an exhausting two and a half hours runtime, and is a veritable tour de force of a movie that once the opening scenes begin – barely lets up. Also starring Gwenyth Paltrow as Kay Stone, the elder has-been star living her privileged yet dull life becomes swept up in Marty’s love for the fast and furious in the constant gritty broke lane. Originally written for Julia Roberts, she later declined due to the fact they hadn’t found at the time the actor to play her mega rich husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Filming began in New York September 2023 it took a year to complete including shooting in Japan for the showdown scenes. Chalamet coming on board in 2018 gave him time to learn the precision of not only recreating the unlikeable character, but also the art and speed of table tennis alongside learning the guitar for his other recent offering of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Alongside our main actors we also have Odessa A’zion as love interest Rachel Mizler, and Tyler, The Creator as Wally, we are in for a ride which barely leaves the viewer time to breathe. But more of this later.
Marty Mauser has been written to keep us front and centre with the title role played by Chalamet and the actor’s control of dialogue, power and focus of a lesser known sports star – at least from a European point of view – is none other than superb. Concentrating on the beginning of his sporting career in the 1950’s as he financially struggles from one day to the next, Chalamet’s performance is none other than exemplary, providing us with a role worthy of his Critic’s Choice and Golden Globe awards he has so far quite rightfully received.
Marty, knowing he has more to offer than being a store shoe salesman, Reisman takes his owed wages at gunpoint and seeks his fortune through fare means or fowl as he tries to make a name for himself on the table tennis circuit. Dipping in and out of his relationships with Rachel Mizler and Kay Stone, his moral and financial horizons seem to implode rather than grow as the film progresses as he deals not only with some other unlikable characters but also some bitter lines which seem morally divisive.
The film’s lengthy runtime is its own downfall. From ‘A24’ productions the entire picture cost around $65million and so far taking a comparatively low $95million, it has fallen short of its minimum of doubling the budget to even break even. And here’s why. We know the title character is extremely well acted. We know we have some superb supporting roles in Paltrow, A’zion and Abel Ferrara who himself plays the gangster Ezra Mishkin, the issue comes down to not only the length of the film but the intensity of the character who becomes more and more unlikeable as one vitriolic battle turns immediately into the next leaving very little room to take a breath. This in turn gave me absolutely no reason to see this tiring film more than once. Oddly enough this personally for me has some immediate comparisons to two other films with another same lead star. The first being One Battle After Another, which once again was superbly acted by Leonardo DiCaprio, though I never wished to go back for more. However Catch Me If You Can has been viewed by myself many times and of course by millions of others and will have me returning yet again.
Marty Supreme gives us the impression we are in for a sports film yet takes us on another chaotic ride completely. The marketing campaign using the orange ping pong ball colour around the New York skyline raised this somewhat by some clever advertising people. Although the film – which is brilliantly acted by all – is an absolute mess of storytelling primarily caused by Safdie’s love of speed editing cuts taking us into a never ending Mad Max style ‘chaos cinema’.
Western cinema in itself is the envy of the world and in turn has provided some of the most brilliantly written, well acted films of the last century. As good as the production of Marty Mauser is, this unfortunately – in my opinion – will not fall into this category of adored, rewatchable titles. Go for Chalamet’s amazing performance and ultimately know he shall over time become revered alongside the likes of one Leonardo DiCaprio.
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
