Josh Reviews Marty Supreme
Timothée Chalamet commands the screen in Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie’s tense yarn about a fast-talking huckster who thinks he’s God’s gift to the world. It’s 1952; Marty Mauser is an incredibly talented table tennis player who dreams of fame and fortune, and he uses his ability to sweet-talk almost anyone into almost anything to try to put together for himself the life he dreams of and feels he deserves. Of course, it’s all a house of cards, and the thrill of the movie is watching Marty try to dance between the raindrops and stay one step ahead of catastrophe.
Uncut Gems made me a fan of Josh & Benny Safdie, and left me eager to follow them both to whatever they’d do in the future. They’re working separately now, with Josh directing & co-writing Marty Supreme (with co-writer Ronald Bronstein, who also co-wrote Uncut Gems), while Benny wrote & directed The Smashing Machine (a film I haven’t seen yet, but hope to get to soon).
As was the case with Uncut Gems, Josh Safdie’s skilled directing and editing keeps Marty Supreme as taut as piano-wire. This is a tense movie!! It’s thrilling to watch (though beware: the cringe factor is high as you watch Marty make one bad decision after another). I was on the edge of my seat for almost the entire run time of the film, absolutely gripped by the story as we watch Marty get backed into one corner after another, slowly becoming more and more desperate.
Timothée Chalamet’s performance is magnetic and captivating. This is a true movie-star role. I continue to be impressed by Mr. Chalamet, as he turns in one amazing performance after another (just last year he crushed it in both Dune Part Two and A Complete Unknown). Mr. Chalamet seems completely committed to his performance as Marty, throwing himself into the character’s brash self-confidence and “I can talk my way into or out of anything” energy. He commands the screen, and absolutely carries this movie. It’s a magnificent performance and the main reason to watch this movie.
The supporting cast isn’t too shabby either! Gwyneth Paltrow is fantastic as Kay Stone, a wealthy, bored former movie star with whom Marty enters a romantic relationship. Ms. Paltrow has only been acting sporadically these days, but it’s great to be reminded what a powerful actor she is. I loved her chemistry with Chalamet’s Marty. I wasn’t familiar with Odessa A’zion’s work before, but she is spectacular as Rachel Mizler, a married young woman who is nonetheless having sex with Marty when the movie opens, and who winds up a part of Marty’s schemes in the film’s second half. I was blown away by the way Ms. A’zion played all the levels of Rachel, from a wronged, angry woman to someone who has the same con-artist energy as Marty does.
Tyler Okonma (also known as Tyler, the Creator) is a hoot as Marty’s friend Wally; I loved seeing the easy way he & Marty slipped into their con-man ways. Fran Drescher is perfect as Marty’s frustrated mother, and I loved seeing Sandra Bernhard as her friend & neighbor. Kevin O’Leary (famous from Shark Tank) is perfect as Kay’s husband Milton Rockwell, a potential threat to Marty. Géza Röhrig is wonderfully nuanced as Hungarian table tennis champion Bela Kletzki, and Koto Kawaguchi is wonderfully stoic as Koto Endo, the deaf table tennis champion from Japan who seems to be the only competitor with the skills to beat Marty. I loved seeing director Abel Ferrara as Ezra Mishkin, a bad dude with whom Marty crosses paths, and I really smiled to see Larry “Ratso” Sloman as Murray Norkin, Marty’s uncle who owns the shoe shop where we see Marty working at the start of the movie. Emory Cohen (who was wonderful in Brooklyn) is great as Rachel’s husband Ira. It wasn’t until I was reading about this movie after I saw it that I realized that Penn Jillette played the gun-wielding dude (who might have the dog Marty is looking for); he was terrific! And I’ve only scratched the surface of the wonderful array of actors who populate this movie.
I love that Marty Supreme (like Uncut Gems) has a strongly Jewish main character and many Jewish supporting characters. It’s nice to see. Marty is a deeply flawed human being, not a heroic character at all, but I think Jewish characters (as is the case with characters of any race, religion, or ethnicity) should be able to be depicted as heroes or villains or anywhere in between. I appreciate that Josh Safdie is telling these Jewish stories with Jewish characters. I will say that I was thrown out of the movie briefly in the moment when we see Marty and his taxi-driving friend Wally use a Jewish slur towards Marty (talking about “Jewing him down”). In the moment, we can see that this is friendly banter between Wally and Marty, and it is (unfortunately) very likely accurate to the time period that this would have been said between two characters like this. But here in 2025/26, with Anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred rising everywhere, I just don’t need to hear this in a movie.
I’m also still not quite sure what to make of the bizarre story that Bela tells about his time in the concentration camp, and his fellow Jewish prisoners licking honey off of his body. I’m unsure how to read this moment in the context of the movie. Is Bela telling the truth, or is he making this up as a way to mock the rich, condescending Milton Rockwell? For us as an audience, is this moment supposed to be funny or heartbreaking? In this fascinating interview with Josh Safdie, he discusses this sequence at length, describing it as “a beautiful story” meant to express “the camaraderie and the tight knit community”… and “how the Jews, particularly in the Holocaust, banded together to survive.” That’s fascinating. I’m not sure the scene reads so clearly in the movie, which might be a problem, though I also think it’s wonderful when movies can allow for ambiguity, pushing the audience to lean in and think about what they think a certain moment means.
Later in that interview, Mr. Safdie talks about how fear of Hitler and the Holocaust “manifested a certain sort of ‘pervasive anxiety’ that exists to this day within [his mother]” and other Jews. “Pervasive anxiety” is a great way to describe the experience of watching Marty Supreme (and Uncut Gems)! It’s fascinating how Mr. Safdie has incorporated that visceral type of anxiety-producing experience into the movies he makes. It’s done with incredible skill, and it makes the experience of watching his movies uniquely memorable and affecting.
My only criticism of Marty Supreme is that it might be a little too long. I feel like this would have been even more of a masterpiece if Mr. Safdie & his team had been able to shave off about 15-20 minutes. At a certain point, I did start to feel somewhat beaten down by the mounting anxiety of watching Marty continue making bad decision after bad decision. I got the point already.
That being said, I was riveted by this movie, and I loved going on this ride. It’s a delight to see such high-level filmmaking unfold before my eyes, and Timothée Chalamet’s astonishing performance is not to be missed. This was one of my favorite movies of 2025!
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