This is a colossal, singular movie about a colossal, singular man and the malformation of his ideal American success story.
Marty Supreme: a brand so powerful that when the man sells himself as an athlete “uniquely positioned to be the face of the sport,” as the surefire champion of the most consequential table tennis tournament in the world, there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind that he is exactly what he says he is. His performance is totalizing; his purpose the consuming mobile force of his life. The illusion that he is untouchable starts to fracture when we see him lose for the first time, and then as soon as he loses the money he needs to make it to the next championship, his spiral causes it to break down entirely. How much power must Josh Safdie hold as a filmmaker if he can hypnotize his audience so fully, capture their attention with the terrifying rat race suffered by Marty during the most humiliating days of his life, and still never extinguish our belief that he must turn out on top? It’s a belief we hold not only because he is uniquely positioned to do so (as our protagonist), but because it’s as if the world will end if he doesn’t.
Marty Supreme‘s greatest achievement is the same as many great masterpieces; making us — in fact, violently forcing us — to sympathize with a delusional and destructive human being whose goals are self-preserving and narcissistic, and whose arrogance is inexorably linked to the violence that he induces those around him to suffer. Long before that first instance of personal failure on the world stage, we know from the perversely hilarious opening sequence that he changes and potentially endangers a married woman’s life by impregnating her — encapsulated by the image of her egg rotating to become a brilliantly shining Marty Supreme-branded ball. We witness him talk his way into everything, through cons and the absolute confidence of a well-practiced liar (“I could sell shoes to an amputee!”), and nonetheless, in spite of who he is, the only thing I want is to see Marty Mauser succeed. To dominate. When he demands a second, real shot at beating Endo, it’s not embarrassing; it’s his last chance at reclaiming his athletic pride, a chance for which we have seen him sacrifice everything (namely his own dignity, others’ safety, and the lives of many New Yorkers) and which will doom him to purgatory if it is left untaken.
I am fascinated by Safdie’s total control over his audience’s emotions. From any perspective, this uncompromised vision should come across as greedily indulgent, and yet, because it is great and affective beyond the shock value of such jumpscares as the falling bathtub or a thug of Abel Ferrara’s getting blasted in the face by a shotgun, it’s impossible to see it that way. Because I love thinking back to every shot, even when I was skeptical of the reliance on close-up at first, it’s impossible to see it that way. Because while I was watching, I was so completely transported into the push-and-pull, surface-heaven, interior-hell vampire’s den created by Safdie that I was at no point thinking about the shots after a period — but was instead invested in the eleventh-hour, Sisyphean struggle to which they were in service — it’s impossible to see it that way. This is the movie that auteur theory was made for.
Let’s not forget the rogues’ gallery of non-professional actors, who nonetheless have an undeniable talent for performing: the previously mentioned Abel Ferrara, Tyler Okonma, David Mamet, Koto Kawaguchi, Pico Iyer, Luke Manley, John Catsimatidis, Penn Jillette, and Isaac Mizrahi are all rounded out by the malignable Kevin O’Leary. They are perfect foils to Timothée Chalamet, who has earned his real-life, Mauser-style self-promotion with everything that he pulls off here. It’s a performance that I don’t even want to take the time to describe in any detail right now because I know I can’t do justice to it, and I’ll get it wrong. In truth, it speaks for itself. His three-dimensionality — and in fact, the perfectly cast three-dimensionality of everyone onscreen — makes Marty Supreme the most convincingly acted movie of 2025. In combination with the assaulting editing and batshit nuts sequences, it’s the best comedy of 2025. And the best movie, too, as far as I can tell. Absolutely arresting.
