REVIEW:
Marty Supreme is a powerhouse of a movie. It’s about a young rebel who does what he wants, thinks he’s the best, tries to best the system every chance he can get, and often gets in trouble for it. In those ways, it’s got a lot in common with another great film, from about twenty years ago, Igby Goes Down. That movie kick-started Kieran Culkin’s real acting career, and just last year it was Culkin winning best actor for A Real Pain. This year it looks like Timothy Chalamet is the front runner to win for Marty Supreme.
Chalamet is dynamic in the movie. Whose to say how similar to this character he is in real life, and how this “acting,” might or might not be so much of a stretch for him, but the one thing that is for sure is that he embodies this character. You feel his rebelliousness and his daring attitude every step of the way. Marty is a ping pong player, and we see him play in tournaments in a couple of scenes of this movie, but to say the movie is about ping pong is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s about a guy trying to figure out his life, but at the same time, embracing wherever it goes.
Marty has two different realationships with women in this movie, and those stories pretty much share equal time if not more, than his ping pong adventures. The first woman is Rachel Mizler. Marty has known and been close friends with her since they were kids. And they are currently carrying on a sexual relationship. The problem is that Rachel is married. On top of that, she is pregnant, and claims that the baby is Marty’s.
While Marty has to sneak around to see Rachel in secrecy, and avoid her big angry brute of a husband who suspects what is going on between them, he also carries on an affair with another married woman. This is Kay Stone, played by Gwenyth Paltrow. Kay plays an aging actress who is married to an uber wealthy head of a company. Marty also has a relationship with this man, although not a very pleasant one. Marty wants to use this man’s money and connections to help finance his ping pong playing, even if that just means using the man’s private jet to get him to Japan for a tournament. And in order to do this, Marty has to undergo a number of challenges, starting with buying the man’s entire table dinner, just to get both him and his wife’s attention.
This is a movie that is definitely more character-based than story based and it happens to be a very good thing. It’s not just Marty who is a strong character, but all those who he interacts with and has relationships with. This businessman, for example, is someone who Marty needs things from, and works to please for much of the film, but as the story goes on he becomes Marty’s biggest nemesis. Pretty amazing when you consider the age difference between the two and how the tycoon is old enough to be Marty’s father. But the story is all about relationships, and the on Marty has with this man is just one of many.
Another one is certainly his relationship with Rachel, which is anything but ordinary. First, is the conflict of her being married. Second is the question of whether or not her husband is actually abusive. And lastly is the question of whether or not she truly wants to leave the husband and be with Marty. Nothing is what it seems in this movie. Nothing is simple or predictable. And while the movie does have a longer than necessary running time, it also moves at a breakneck pace, never getting tired or dull at all. That energetic but also pressure packed style is common place now for director Josh Safdie. From Good Times to Uncut Gems, this guys proving to have a style all to his own, which moves at a frenetic pace and doesn’t hold anything back. This is most definitely his best and most ambitious movie to date, and it deserves all of the acclaim it has been receiving.