How very American is Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a very 1980s era ping pong player who is stuck living in the 1950s? No, he is not a time traveler but a man born too soon. Director Josh Safdie wants to emphasize this out-of-time element with him, too, by setting the film in the 50s, filming it like it’s in the 70s while including needle-drops from the 80s. This provides a level of emotional and cognitive confusion early on that is entirely intentional, putting us in Marty’s place as a man who is never quite comfortable where he is at in the world and in his own life.
In most cases, I argue that the protagonist of a film needs to be likable. This is a filmmaking golden rule because if the lead of your film is a complete A-hole, audiences are unwilling to follow their journey, even if that journey eventually leads to redemption. There generally needs to be something we like about them to keep us on their side. Safdie and his co-writer Ronald Bronstein have done the near impossible though and given us a lead who has virtually no redeeming qualities, yet we follow his journey anyway. His charisma convinces those around him to give him what he wants, and that charisma extends to us in the audience, too. He demands our attention, and he gets it. It is an amazing magic trick; we never see the strings that make it work. This is Chalamet at his very best, giving a performance for the ages that is almost surely going to land him his first Academy Award. I applauded his Bob Dylan in last year’s A Complete Unknown, and this is far and away an even better performance from the young actor.
When we first meet Marty Mauser, he is working at a shoe store in 1950s New York City, barely making ends meet at his Uncle Murray’s (Larry “Ratso” Sloman) shop. Murray wants him to manage the place, but Marty is determined to leave all this behind and travel to England to compete in the British Open, playing table tennis against the best players in the world. When Murray conveniently is absent to provide Marty with his owed wages, needed to fund the trip to England, Marty robs the shoe store, justifying it as just taking what is owed him.
While in England, Marty refuses to stay at the players’ barracks and instead stays at the swanky Ritz Hotel, billing the expense to the International Table Tennis Association (ITTA). There he catches a glimpse of former actress Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is there on business with her wealthy husband, pen magnate Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Through his charm and confidence, Marty seduces her, and they spend the night together. He also gets the attention of her husband, who has some marketing ideas for Marty.
Marty makes it to the finals, defeating the reigning champion in the semifinals before losing in the finals to Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), the Japanese player. Milton offers Marty an opportunity to play against Endo again in Japan, an exhibition match that Marty would be expected to throw to appease the Japanese audiences, but his pride gets the best of him, and he insults Milton and walks out. Later, when Marty arrives back in New York, he finds out that he has been banned from the World Championship in Japan unless he pays a $1500 fine to the ITTA for fraudulently expensing his stay at the Ritz Hotel to them.
Meanwhile, Marty’s childhood friend, Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion), has gotten pregnant with his child. She is married to Ira (Emory Cohen), an abusive man, and has been having an affair with Marty to escape the misery she has at home. Though Marty denies it could be his child, she stays with him anyway, helping him escape when his uncle Murray has him arrested for the robbery earlier. She also is involved in the many attempts he makes to get the money needed to pay his fee and get to Japan.
Marty is a fascinating character to dissect. He has the confidence of an 80s man, knowing he will succeed despite having nothing tangible to make it happen. When asked how he lives, pursuing table tennis when it doesn’t make him any money, his response is, “I live with the confidence that if I believe in myself, the money will follow.” The idea that this dream of his might not work out “doesn’t even enter my consciousness.” It’s the kind of cocky confidence that got him into Kay Stone’s bed despite her being way out of his league. Marty is a despicable character, the kind of person we want to punch in the face, but he is also a fascinating character that we can’t seem to turn away, either, despite us knowing that he is an absolute leech, sucking those around him dry to further his own agenda.
Kay Stone is one of those characters that comes close to being a cliché, the has-been actress who is past her prime. She is married to a rich man whom she doesn’t love and dreams of the days when she was relevant. But Paltrow is a better actress than to fall back on genre clichés like that. Kay Stone is a much more complex character, using Marty almost as much as he is using her but also falling for his charm to the degree that she is willing to give him large amounts of money simply because he lauds attention on her when she is feeling none of that elsewhere.
The second time he comes into her life, she is back in New York City, struggling to pull together a stage play financed by her husband and dealing with a privileged actor playing her on-screen partner. Marty seduces her all over again with the intent of finding a way to get money off of her to cover his fine and get him to Japan. And she is willing to go along with him, eventually agreeing to give him an expensive necklace that he can pawn for the cash. But this is upended when she learns that her performance on stage was poorly reviewed. Her response to that review is the polar opposite to the one she has when she first stepped out on that stage mere hours earlier to the thunderous applause of the audience. An actor lives and dies by the audience’s reactions, and she experiences both sides of that here. She has put herself out there for the world to see and respond to, and while she basked in the adulation of the applause, a single columnist’s review is enough to shatter her and leave her distraught. Such is the life of an entertainer, whose ego is tottering on the brink of her own perceived value.
Odessa A’zion has an even more difficult role in this film. She is treated so poorly by Marty, yet she stays by his side through it all. Part of that is because she is carrying his child, and part of that is their long relationship that goes back to childhood. We never see any of this backstory between them, so we have to fill in those blanks ourselves. We are introduced to her when she schemes, with Marty, to get into the shoe store’s backroom for a bit of hanky-panky. This romantic hookup is what leads to her pregnancy (in a scene that is highly reminiscent of the opening of Look Who’s Talking). We don’t fully understand their relationship at this point, but we get enough to know that this is an affair. Much later, she will return to the picture and be sporting a black eye, allegedly a gift from her abusive husband. This is Rachel manipulating Marty in her own way, even as she is willing to do just about anything for him. Odessa is so good that she practically steals the show away from the lead. This is a star-making performance, and it will be exciting to see what she does next.
But Timothée Chalamet is the real star here, and this is a role that rightfully deserves some Oscar recognition. Every year of late, he comes out with a film that is designed to put him in the Oscar spotlight, and thus far, he has fallen a bit short. This could be the one to finally push him over the top. Of course, people felt the same about Adam Sandler’s performance in another Josh Safdie film, Uncut Gems, and that performance got virtually ignored. But Chalamet won the Golden Globes Award for Marty Supreme and is picking up momentum going into Oscar season. As of this writing, the Oscar nominations are about a week away, and it is fully expected to see his name on that ballot.
Marty Supreme is long, full of twists and turns, and never fully reveals until the end just where it is going to go. It owes a great deal to two legendary collaborators: Darius Khondji and Daniel Lopatin. Khondji brings a kind of sweaty, jittery energy to the cinematography that keeps you in the moment and gives a real sense of being there for the ride. This aids Chalamet’s acting when his character is at his most desperate. Coupled with that is the pulse-pounding score by Lopatin and needle-drops that almost become a character in and of themselves. This, combined with some truly fantastic editing, gives Marty Supreme a feeling unique to this picture and will surely assist it when it comes time for the Academy to vote. It’s the kind of movie that practically begs you to rewatch it just so you can analyze what Safdie and his collaborators are doing to make everything work together so perfectly.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Josh Safdie
Best Director: Josh Safdie
Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet
Best Original Screenplay: Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein
Best Casting: Jennifer Venditti
Best Cinematography: Darius Khondji
Best Production Design: Jack Fisk and Adam Willis
Best Editing: Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein
Best Costume Design: Miyako Bellizzi
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Release Date: December 25, 2025
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara, and Fran Drescher
Directed by: Josh Safdie
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