EAT • SLEEP • REVIEW • REPEAT
MARTY SUPREME
Director: Josh Safdie
Writer: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara
Chalamet smashes it in a stressy, balls-out thrill ride.
Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the Arrakis sand for the past few years, it’s hard not to have noticed the stratospheric ascent of Timothée Chalamet. While it’s true that he’s been on the scene for quite some time now, his rise to prominence of late has been nothing short of astonishing.
From Paul Atreides to Bob Dylan via Willy Wonka, your man has been on the hugest of rolls lately playing big characters with even bigger personalities, however, despite this success, what’s been notably missing from Timothée Chalamet’s arsenal is a role he can truly call his own. Yes, he’s managed to firmly put his own stamp on roles like Atreides, Dylan, and Wonka, yet these are all well-known characters with big brand name recognition and almost impossible to own outright.
Considering the absolute tear he’s been on, it was always going to be a matter of time before Chalamet eventually found himself the kind of role he could dominate and use to launch himself to the moon – and Marty Mauser may just be that character.
Fiercely driven by fame and self-reinvention, and with heady dreams of becoming the best table tennis player in the world, the fast-talking and aggressively ambitious Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) finds himself hustling his way into high stakes competitions, funding his wild ambitions through risky schemes and relentless self-promotion. Willing to go to hell and back in his pursuit of greatness, Marty’s journey takes him from dingy local matches to international tournaments, where his own inflated sense of destiny crashes head-first into the cold, hard ping-pong bat of reality.
In reality, it only released six years ago, yet it’s felt like forever since the Safdie brothers gave us Uncut Gems. Whether it was down to strikes, a pandemic, or the eventual disintegration of the Safdie’s working relationship, the lack of follow-up to Uncut Gems from either brother has nonetheless been disappointing.
Despite this long wait, we made it in the end, as 2025 brought us two Safdie films for our money, however, the big question is, were either of them able to replicate that stressful, kinetic spark that made Uncut Gems such a unique hit? Well, as decent as it was, Bennie Safdie’s The Smashing Machine never really ignited, however, in Marty Supreme, Josh has finally delivered the perfect follow-up to the manic, inimitable magic of Uncut Gems.
While first impressions suggest Marty Supreme is a world away from Uncut Gems, the film is every inch its spiritual successor. Although it comes out of the gate feeling like a bog standard sports biopic, it quickly becomes clear that we’re looking at a very different beast here, as Marty Supreme rapidly veers off the rails towards something else entirely.
A chaotic, erratic, compulsive, propulsive, highly stressful whirlwind of plot tangents, unrelenting ambition, painful success addiction and spiralling desperation - Marty Supreme is a great many things, but the boilerplate sports biopic it appears at first glance to be is absolutely not one of them. Despite its lengthy 150-minute runtime, the film positively clips by, and while the plot bounces around so fast it’s difficult to catch your breath at times, it’s hard not to get swept up in it all.
After an opening act that feels very much in the sports film safe zone, everything goes careening off the rails soon after, as Timothée Chalamet’s Marty ducks, dives, and hustles his way to the top of the table tennis world. From here on in, Marty Supreme revels in overloading both us and itself, however, while this onslaught is a lot to take in at times, just as you think it’s all about to collapse under the weight of its own insanity, Josh Safdie manages to pull us back in and keep his film hurtling forward.
And hurtle forward it most certainly does. Spearheaded by an anarchic Timothée Chalamet performance, a riotous out-of-step soundtrack that gleefully slaps 80s synths over a 50s set story, and some pleasingly lively editing, Marty Supreme is a film that, despite its weighty runtime, absolutely flies by. Like its protagonist, Marty Supreme is loud, charismatic, erratic, obnoxious, and highly driven, and while this heady cocktail of elements makes for an overwhelming viewing experience at times, it’s also a highly entertaining one that, once up to speed, refuses to take its foot off the gas.
Taking the relentless, chaotic momentum of Uncut Gems and moulding it onto a far more expansive and easily accessible sports story framework, Josh Safdie is a director willing to lean into his past while clearly eager to show us what he’s got as a filmmaker in his own right. In full flow and showcasing a brash brand of self-assurance that would make Marty Mauser himself blush, Safdie positively oozes confidence. There’s a bullishness and a cockiness to Marty Supreme that feels a little off-putting and misguided at first, yet the more it finds its groove and the more you tune into its rhythm, the harder it becomes to fight its relentlessly impetuous charms.
As the film moves through the gears in its highly volatile second and third acts, you begin to feel the highs, the lows, and the almost hypnotic buzz of the chase as Marty’s bullish plans to make it to the World Table Tennis Championships takes one extraordinary turn after another. As the plot begins to careen out of control, the film’s stress levels rise exponentially, and while this unpredictable, frequently chaotic trip is a lot to handle at times, sink into it and ride that wave of stress and you’ll be richly rewarded.
And a huge part of this eventual reward stems from the pure charisma and undeniable allure of Timothée Chalamet’s bulldozing performance. Under the stewardship of any other actor, there’s every chance a character as brazen, bolshy, and downright unlikeable as Marty Mauser could fall painfully flat, however, with Chalamet you immediately know you’re in very safe hands here.
Utterly sinking himself into Marty, Chalamet takes no prisoners with a performance that’s undoubtedly the finest of his career to date. Even more than his roles as Paul Atreides, Willy Wonka, and even Dylan, Chalamet absolutely disappears into Marty as he makes the character his own in a manner we’ve never truly seen from him before.
Above all else, it’s a performance of pure magnetism on a level you so rarely see from an actor this early in their career, and one that dares to pull you in, despite how much you attempt to fight it. Simply put, Marty Mauser is such an unlikeable arsehole that your entire being screams at you to root against him, yet try as you might, you just can’t help but cheer this particular arsehole on.
Marty is a chancer, a grafter, a sociopath, and an all-round detestable human being, but boy is it impossible to take your eyes off him. Marty’s story is such a uniquely American one and it’s taken by the horns by Chalamet in the kind of all-encompassing performance that will have heads turning come award season to safely solidify him as one of the finest acting talents of his generation.
Starting off as a rather standard sports biopic, Marty Supreme rapidly veers off the rails towards something else altogether. A chaotic, erratic, highly stressful whirlwind of ego, success and spiralling desperation, Josh Safdie serves up the perfect spiritual sequel to Uncut Gems, with Timothée Chalamet in the form of his young career as a man on the very edge and courting chaos at every turn.
