Film Review | Marty Supreme

Josh Safdie’s new film, Marty Supreme, is a choppy and kinetic ride that showcases Timothée Chalamet’s acting talent across 150 minutes.

Chalamet plays Marty, a wiry New York shoe salesman with dreams of conquering the world through table tennis. This is in part a sports drama, but this being a Safdie film, it is also a chaotic thriller peppered with violence and tension.

The chaos comes from the film’s characters; around Marty, we have his love interest, a married friend whom he impregnates in the film’s opening sequence, and another woman, an older actor married to a wealthy pen magnate. The cast also include said magnate who seeks to use Marty as a means to further his wealth through marketing, and a scamming buddy played by Tyler Okonma (Tyler, the Creator).

The main crux of the narrative is the table tennis tournament, but the cast of misfits propels the story along in a series of misadventures and mishaps. The overarching theme of the film is that lying, cheating, and stealing is the way of the world, and one must adapt to that message to thrive. Indeed, all of the characters in the film are loathsome and unlikeable. However, that is not to say the film is unlikeable; instead, Marty Supreme challenges the viewer by inviting us along for a ride with a band of treacherous lowlifes and asks us to enjoy it.

From a technical perspective, the film is brilliant, and it captures its settings of New York and Tokyo, to name a couple, with precision and care. The mise-en-scene, and environments generally, are authentic and raw. Chalamet is on screen for the majority of the runtime and is captivating in the role. He is truly believable as a rat with no shame and who will stop at nothing to fight his way to greatness. The film is scored (as ever, in Safdie-film fashion), by Daniel Lopatin in a slew of moody and edgy synth drones and sequences.

Whilst the unlikeable nature of the characters is questionable, what is certain is that the film is a feat of excellent directing, and an accomplished piece of modern filmmaking.

2025, Josh Safdie

8.0