“Marty Supreme” 3 stars out of 4
(You always want to at least try to evaluate a film on its own merits, but there’s no escaping context. And it’s especially hard to separate a movie from the other films you’re watching around the same time. So with my excuses firmly in place…)
If “Rental Family” was one of my favorite movies to watch in 2025, “Marty Supreme” was one of the most aggravating. To its credit, director Josh Safdie’s effort boasts a host of excellent individual qualities, from clever writing to exciting editing to a masterful performance from Timothee Chalamet. And yet, I kind of hated it, because “Rental Family” is the story of a man who struggles to do the right thing, while “Marty Supreme” is the story of a man who consistently does the selfish thing, learns nothing, and wins anyway.
Set in the early 1950s and reportedly based on the real-life exploits of a man named Marty Reisman, Safdie’s film introduces us to Marty Mauser (Chalamet), a fast-talking New York City native with aspirations of grandeur and enough talent to make those dreams come true, as long as he doesn’t submarine his own efforts first. We meet him as he slaves away in a family-owned shoe store, entertaining offers of promotion but snubbing them in favor of his real passion: success on the burgeoning table tennis circuit. When his boss is slow to deliver his earnings, Marty robs his own employer to fund his way to a tournament in London, only to lose in the finals to a ping-pong phenom from Japan.
Marty’s criminal exploits aren’t his only behavior that gets in the way. By the time he’s on the way to London, he’s already gotten one married woman pregnant, and his trip abroad links him up with Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a fading movie star (also married) who proves unable to resist Marty’s irrepressible charms. But things get complicated when it turns out that Stone’s wealthy and powerful husband (Kevin O’Leary) is the key to a rematch with his Japanese rival, and Marty has to find a way to manipulate both parties to satisfy his desires.
On paper, Marty is a loathsome and irredeemable person, and despite the best efforts of Safdie and Ronald Bronstein’s script, “Marty Supreme” struggles to mask this reality under a barrage of comic interactions, zany and improbably action sequences, and the vague excuse that it’s OK for Marty to behave this way because he came up hard. To its credit, Safdie never really seems to want you to see Marty for anything other than what he is, but the character also never quite seems to get what’s coming to him, and ultimately “Marty Supreme” feels like a very entertaining character portrait and an unsatisfying story. If this were intended as a faithful biography of Reisman, you could argue the limits of the true story, but “Marty Supreme” doesn’t portray itself as such.
Again, the pieces provide some great moments along the way. Chalamet will almost certainly get another Oscar nomination for his turn as Marty, and deservedly so. “Marty” will also probably get attention in other categories like screenwriting and direction. But at least for me, great pieces just aren’t enough when the movie leaves me with an empty feeling in my stomach. We all struggle to get by in life despite our weaknesses and self-inflicted wounds, but Marty doesn’t seem to understand that. He needs to. I can only hint at this moment, since it closes the film, but “Marty Supreme” tries to end on a note of hope that feels more like dread. And whether this was intentional or not, I’d rather it have been a moment of justice.
—
“Marty Supreme” is rated R for scattered violence, fleeting nudity, profanity, and some scenes of vulgar sexual content.