Marty Supreme

 

Director Josh Safdie 

Timothée Chalamet on the set

Safdie with Timothée Chalamet

Darius Khondji on the set

Tokyo set

Marty Reisman, 1946

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARTY SUPREME              B-                                                                                         Finland  USA  (150 mi)  2025  ‘Scope  d: Josh Safdie

I have a purpose.  You don’t.  And if you think that’s some kind of blessing, it’s not.  It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through.  And with that obligation comes sacrifice. 
—Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet)

A bit of a hot mess, a sprawling, anxiety-ridden, and extremely over-produced film with loud, instrusive music by composer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) that plays throughout, though there’s an exquisite use of popular songs of the 1980’s, also synthesizer sounds from the same era, opening and closing with Tears for Fears, but the original score offers no hint of subtlety, as if the entire film is a remix video.  Made by Josh Safdie, the first time not working with his younger brother Benny, the makers of Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019), excelling in expressing that New York City vibe, where this has the same frantic, adrenaline-laced energy, loosely inspired by the life of early 1950’s ping pong aficionado Marty Reisman ("Marty Reisman – US Table Tennis Hall of Fame") and his book, The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler (1974), where in the 40’s and 50’s, New York City table tennis was a collection of misfits and gamblers, where betting on the game drove the sport, with a talented player able rake in hundreds in a single night, which would be the equivalent of thousands today.  There already is a documentary made about the flamboyant Reisman, Leo Leigh’s FACT OR FICTION: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A PING PONG HUSTLER (2014).  The hustler aspect of the sport recalls the eloquent pool playing grace of Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats, the best player in the world, and Paul Newman’s rising star Fast Eddie Felson in Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961), though this doesn’t come close to the tension-filled, insatiably-interesting character study of that memorable film, which perfectly captured the stench and dingy atmosphere of the smoke-filled poolroom.  The raison d’être of this film is Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, so good in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name (2017) and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown (2024), who has secretly been preparing for this role for six or seven years, continually training and becoming familiar with the game, even traveling with a table while he worked on other films, creating a fictionalized portrait of the most flamboyantly charismatic table tennis player the world has ever witnessed, whose live-wire approach carries nearly every scene of the film, literally careening from place to place.  Written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, who both co-edited the film as well, this becomes a collaborative effort in creating an immersive portrait of what’s commonly known as a bullshit artist that feels like a psychotic-driven, impressionistic mosaic of neverending mood swings.  While ostensibly about ping pong, the protagonist feels more like the volatile and ferociously temperamental chess champion Bobby Fischer of table tennis, both viewing the game as nothing less than armed combat, as the film reveals just how difficult it was to build a career around a sport that still hadn’t caught on in the United States.  Table tennis didn’t become an Olympic sport until 1988 (no American has ever medaled), so Marty had to go to great lengths to hustle money in the most unorthodox of ways, bordering on criminality, to finance his dream of becoming a world champion, knowing he was talented enough, but finding his way into international tournaments on the other side of the world was another story.

Listed at #2 at IndieWire: The 25 Best Movies of 2025, and #3 at The Playlist: The 25 Best Films of 2025 and New York Times: Manohla Dargis: Best Movies of 2025, it’s all about having a single-minded purpose, as we initially find Marty, a Lower East Side Jewish kid stuck working in his uncle’s shoestore, where we hear him bragging that he could sell shoes to an amputee, taking a break from fitting women’s shoes to have a backroom tryst with his childhood sweetheart, Rachel (Odessa A’zion), who is married to someone else that treats her badly, exuding passion in everything he does as he desperately tries to raise the money to afford airfare to England to play in their invitational.  Crossing the line at every turn, Marty justifies his deplorable antics by thinking the ends justify the means, but not everyone else sees it that way, as he’s a natural born street hustler and swindler, where many are swayed by his charms, including Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a retired Hollywood movie actress from the 30’s on the verge of A Streetcar Named Desire theatrical comeback, who he sees across the room in a fancy restaurant at the Ritz in London, finagling his way into her hotel room, where she doesn’t know whether to call security or embrace his hare-brained schemes, as he exudes such a sense of feverish urgency that she’s inevitably drawn into his youthful sexual orbit, actions she later regrets.  Invariably, it’s her incredibly wealthy and supremely successful businessman husband that peaks his interest, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), thinking opportunity knocks as he sees dollar signs, playing out like some twisted and demented version of the American Dream, with Marty trying to promote his own idea of orange-colored ping pong balls entitled Marty Supreme, with the words “Made in America” printed underneath the name, thinking this will change the game, as a white ball against white shirts is hard to see.  While Marty is supremely confident, to the point of arrogance and cockiness, he’s also deluded and self-destructive, prone to creating chaos wherever he goes, thinking Rockwell should just throw money at him, as he’s such a sure bet, but Marty shoots down all his offers that are little more than an excuse to promote his own business product, using Marty as an exhibition act to help sell his world-acclaimed pens, a proposal Marty finds deeply offensive, always believing that he’s the star, not some novelty act playing second fiddle, so these discussions are a little rocky, with the businessman quickly losing patience on this unproven commodity.  It’s only a matter of time, however, before Marty’s life deteriorates into utter mayhem, having to deal with one disaster after another, finding himself destitute and all alone, where playing ping pong is the only thing that he’s actually good at, supremely confident in his abilities, just oozing with braggadocio, belittling others as not in his same league, described in the press as “the Chosen One,” bragging that he is “the ultimate product of Hitler’s defeat,” where he’s a consummate trash talker before the phrase was even invented, something Mohammad Ali elevated to an artform in the sport of boxing in the 1960’s.  Shot on 35mm in ‘Scope by Darius Khondji, who shot the brother’s previous film, this tries to recreate the nuances of the early 50’s, with some degree of success, but mostly this is shot indoors in claustrophobic hotel rooms, small spaces, or cavernous arenas with multiple ping pong matches being played at once.         

What’s important to understand is that the sport itself is overlooked, small, and dismissed, yet the film is driven by Marty’s relentless obsession to be the best ping pong player in the world, which may as well be the ambitious pursuit of flying men to the moon, as it just fails to register with anyone else around him, who see it as little more than a hobby.  At the time, American players met in dingy basements on the margins of anything resembling a sport other than maybe high-stakes poker, while attracting large crowds filling stadiums in Europe and Asia.  Yet for all the negativity he encounters, it only drives him more, hustling his way from table tennis tables in New York to Paris, Tokyo, and even the Great Pyramids of Egypt, shamelessly chipping off a souvenir from one of the giant blocks at the base and handing it to his mother, reminding her, “We built that” (a common misconception), where the film is defined by his daring physicality, putting himself on the line, creating a fully-charged persona that lives on the edge, that thrives in adversity, where he’s a bit of a showman, doing trick shots for curious spectators who are in awe of his unleashed talent, as he was known for using a Coke bottle for a paddle, or a garbage-can lid, a shoe, a light bulb, his eyeglasses, while making behind-the-back or under-the-leg returns, Marty Supreme Exclusive Clip - Semifinals (2025) YouTube (2:08).  His pièce de résistance was to place a cigarette at the opposite end of the table and then, crushing the ball with his powerful forehand, break the cigarette in two.  The entire film is an adrenaline rush, thwarted at every turn, denied the opportunities of a lifetime, so he just doubles down on his dream, where his deluded sense of entitlement is distinctly American, yet his sharp wit, brash impulsiveness, astonishingly cruel and inappropriate language, and giant-sized ego will simply not be denied, matched only by his superlative talent.  A narcissist in development, the changing parts all around him are a revolving door of whoever happens to benefit him the most, as he’s constantly charging ahead, like a bull in a China shop, where calamities are an everyday occurrence, harming anyone and everyone around him, but he refuses to let that stop him.  This gargantuan obsession with a dream both propels and consumes him, where at times it feels like a demolition derby, as it’s an exhausting journey built around a transformative performance by Chalamet, an inveterate liar and relentless scoundrel who’s always working the angles, but continuously gets sidetracked by a myriad of side journeys that lead to personal disasters and self-inflicted catastrophes.  The problem is there’s not an ounce of self-reflection in the film, no pauses to think and re-evaluate how best to get his life on track in order to achieve his real purpose and main goal.  Hell, we never once even see the man practice or train, so apparently he just expects to win, like wishful thinking.  Despite spending two and a half hours in what amounts to a psychological character study with one central character onscreen nearly the entire time, in the end we still know next to nothing about him, while none of the secondary characters are allowed to have their own developed lives apart from Marty, instead they disappear just as quickly as they are seen.  What that leaves is a pervasive emptiness that, despite the whirlwind of kinetic energy, saturates the mood of the entire film.    

One of the more amazing stories comes from Marty’s friend Béla Kletzki (Hungarian actor and poet Géza Röhrig, who starred in the acclaimed 2015 László Nemes Holocaust movie Son of Saul (Saul Fia), a former Hungarian table tennis star from the 30’s, who survived Auschwitz when he was recognized by a German prison guard on his way to the gas chambers, then sent to defuse bombs on the camp outskirts, which is based on what actually happened to Polish player Alojzy Ehrlich (Alojzy Ehrlich: The Jewish Table Tennis Champion Who ...).  While there are some extraordinary shots of tournament play, accentuated by some exceptional production design by the legendary Jack Fisk, who over the past 50 years has worked with Terrence Malick, Brian De Palma, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson, he runs into one particularly difficult opponent who becomes his nemesis, Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi, a 26-year-old real-life deaf table tennis champion from Japan), reportedly deaf as a result of the American firebombing of Tokyo, who has the entire Japanese nation behind him, a powerful outlet for national pride and identity in the postwar Japanese recovery, who are simply enthralled with his abilities.  Endo’s fictional character is based upon Hiroji Satoh, who won the World Table Tennis Championship in 1952.  While barely touched upon in the film, Endo’s prowess is largely due to the changed racket design, with a sponge-covered foam rubber on one side instead of a hard paddle, allowing him to place more spin and achieve greater speed than a traditional paddle, while also muting the sound that players take a lifetime to be able to detect, like getting a jump on a fly ball to the outfield in baseball.  At first this flummoxes Marty, as he’s never encountered this before, and it takes some time before he develops an answer.  This revolutionary development in paddles actually became a bone of contention with the real Marty Reisman, eschewing it as “fraud and deception” because overnight, former champions were suddenly reduced to has-beens, preferring the challenges of an original wood design, claiming it required greater skill.  This same argument happened in the game of tennis, as the wood rackets in the Rod Laver era gave way to the steel rackets of Jimmy Connors, as both he and Billy Jean King dominated the sport afterwards.  While this is a typical Safdie Brothers’ roller coaster thrill ride designed to be a crowdpleaser, where it’s relentlessly volatile at every turn, not sure it amounts to much more than that, despite being A24’s most expensive film to date, with the studio pulling out all the stops in a ridiculous, multi-month promotional campaign in an attempt to capture mainstream appeal, however, detours into violence and family melodrama feel like unnecessary distractions, with a less than scintillating and highly conventional finale leading to an epic Tears for Fears song over the end credits, yet the corrosive personality of the alienated protagonist does feel like a counterpoint to the Coen Brothers’ time capsule depiction of the early, pre-Dylan Greenwich Village folk scene of Inside Llewyn Davis (2012).      

Note

Easy to miss is director Abel Ferrara (a dangerous criminal, of course), and brief cameo appearances by Fran Drescher (Marty’s mother), Sandra Bernhard (her friend living downstairs), New York–based author Larry “Ratso” Sloman as Marty’s shoestore-owning uncle, billionaire grocery store mogul John Catsimatidis as the father of a friend, rap artist Tyler, the Creator as Marty’s cab-driving friend, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi as Kay’s publicist who gets theater tickets for Marty, prolific writer Naomi Fry as Kay’s assistant, novelist Pico Iyer as head of the International Table Tennis Association, playwright David Mamet (an actual ping pong hustler in his early years) as a theater director, comedian Penn Jillette as a hair-trimmed, kick-ass farmer, high-wire act Philippe Petit as an MC, multiple medal-winning German table tennis champion Timo Boll, Hall of Fame NBA legend George “the Iceman” Gervin as a table tennis club owner, and also NBA greats Tracy McGrady and Kemba Walker as Harlem Globetrrotters.  The real-life Marty Reisman died in 2012 at the age of eighty-two.

Armageddon Time

 

Director James Gray

Gray with cinematographer Darius Khondji

ARMAGEDDON TIME        B                                                                                                     USA  Brazil  (114 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: James Gray

The thing that most white people imagine that they can salvage from the storm of life is really, in sum, their innocence.  It was this commodity precisely which I had to get rid of at once, literally, on pain of death.  I am afraid that most of the white people I have ever known impressed me as being in the grip of a weird nostalgia, dreaming of a vanished state of security and order.      —James Baldwin, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy, from Esquire magazine, May 1, 1961, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy - ALLISON BOLAH

James Gray is one of those filmmakers who is better received in Europe than he is in America, as his early films like LITTLE ODESSA (1994), The Yards (1999), and WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) express a shocking violence where death is a prominent theme, known for also creating memorable nightclub sequences, yet despite rave reviews at Cannes, these deeply personal films were often overlooked and received sharply divided reviews.  But for all their dramatic expansiveness, these early crime pictures were of a kind not seen since the New Hollywood classics of the 1970’s, where Gray is a cinephile clearly impacted by the films of that era, citing Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista) (1970), William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1973), Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), and THE GODFATHER Part II (1974), and the films of Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick, yet claims the film that has had the most enduring influence on him was Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), noting that the “swell of the architecture of a movie is part of what makes it the most beautiful visual art form.”  While he has passionate supporters, he has just as many detractors, where he’s never been able to find a mass audience, yet French critics love him, which is why he’s become a Cannes regular for over twenty years, with this film receiving a 7-minute standing ovation.  A native of Flushing, Queens, Gray’s first films tell personal, if loosely autobiographical, stories set in Brooklyn, venturing to Ellis Island for his historical drama The Immigrant (2013), making his way to the Amazon jungle and even outer space for his next projects, before finding his way back home to Queens, making his most autobiographical film, a portrait of his upbringing in the 1980’s, with the Gray family name shortened from Greyzerstein at Ellis Island, a time when a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America returned to conservatism, placing a halt on any socially progressive agenda.  The youngest son in an upwardly mobile Jewish-American family, 11-year old Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) is an alter-ego of the director, with an antagonizing older brother Ted (Ryan Sell), and second-generation parents Esther (Anne Hathaway) and Irving (Jeremy Strong), while Anthony Hopkins plays the kindly grandfather Aaron Rabinowitz, whose family fled first from the murderous acts of the Cossacks, and then the Nazi’s.  While Jewish history is a predominate theme, this film slyly overlays a similar theme taking place in America with the routine persecution of blacks, who are subject to a heavy-handed authoritative approach from government, schools, and police, quickly labeled troublemakers or criminals, never receiving the breaks or second chances that whites often receive.  A family drama that reflects on a small scale where the whole country is headed, the film is a sober reflection, a coming to terms with one’s own past, which clearly haunts the filmmaker to this day, exploring a generational failure, characterized by the 1980 Presidential election of Ronald Reagan, who was swept into office on a tide of racism and a legacy of dog-whistle bigotry, featuring his slogan, “Let’s make America great again (sound familiar?),”  Pandering to racists through Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which continues to harm communities even today, Reagan released southern states from school desegregation and voting rights mandates while demonizing black women as welfare queens who want free hand-outs and are unwilling to work for a living, making the rest of the country despise who they are and everything they stand for, planting the seeds for the white supremacy of Trump, whose family makes its eerie presence, almost like a horror film.  By the time Donald Trump becomes President in 2016, Republicans hold almost every governor’s office and control most legislatures across the South.

The film’s title comes from a 1979 reggae song by The Clash, The Clash - Armagideon Time [Single] - YouTube (3:51), the B-side of London Calling, while also referencing Ronald Reagan’s 1979 quote on Jim Bakker’s evangelical PTL television network, openly campaigning as an evangelical Christian, expressing his growing interest in the anti-gay theology of Armageddon, “Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that if we don’t do it now, if we let this be another Sodom and Gomorrah, that maybe we might be the generation that sees Armageddon?”  This coming-of-age story reveals the different trajectory of the lives of two young boys, one white and one black, Paul and Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), quickly becoming best friends in a 6th grade class at P.S. 173, as both are singled out for being disruptive in class by the overzealous teacher Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk), who bears a resemblance to Ben Stein, the cartoonish teacher in FERRIS BUEHLER’S DAY OFF (1986).  While the point of view follows Paul and his family, we learn that Johnny has none, living with a grandmother suffering from dementia, basically leaving him homeless where he’s fending for himself, held back the previous year, the only black kid in class, with the teacher reminding him of his failures at every turn.  There are subtle differences in the punishment of each student, as Johnny is the one automatically blamed, even when Paul is the instigator, where he’s able to hide behind his race, learning very early about how racial dynamics play out in the real world, which only grew more exacerbated with the election of Reagan.  Despite such different backgrounds, they take solace in being outsiders, with Paul having little interest in school, spending his time drawing instead, with a talent for illustrations, creating a science-fiction superhero character named Captain United, dreaming of one day becoming an important artist.  Both share a passion for outer space, with Johnny dreaming of being an astronaut with NASA, while Paul wants to illustrate comic books about space travel, but their friendship is defined by the rebellious things they do together, like skip out on school, smoke weed in the bathroom, and hang out in the clubhouse built in Paul’s backyard, which Johnny secretly uses as his makeshift home.  While his mother Esther is the head of the PTA, Paul thinks she runs the school, protecting him from any adverse punitive acts, viewing himself as near invincible.  Overall, however, despite telling a personal story, the film feels distantly impersonal and heavy-handed, never becoming dramatically engaging, as outside of Johnny, there are really no likable characters in the film, with Paul in nearly every frame, and he’s kind of a bratty kid, misbehaving at home and at school, where he gives his parents plenty of grief, acting up in inappropriate situations.  When they try to express the gravity of their family history, Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants who escaped anti-Semitism in Europe, it’s beyond his comprehension, showing little interest as he routinely backtalks while tuning them out.  It’s rare to see a coming-of-age film with such a snotnose kid as the lead protagonist, yet he has a special relationship with his grandfather, who looks after him like a guardian angel, buying him gifts, showering him with affection, never letting him forget his past, as they may otherwise end up haunting you, which is exactly what happened in America, where embracing the sins of Ronald Reagan was a breeding ground leading us into the disaster of the Trump era.  Following in the footsteps of demagogue radio priest Father Coughlin, who commanded a massive audience in the 1930’s, viewed as the father of hate speech, spouting anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tirades on the airwaves during the lead-up to World War II, (The Deplatforming of Father Coughlin - Slate Magazine), these are quasi-celebrities who blend populist appeal and right-wing politics, where today a narcissistic self-interest is the new moral dilemma plaguing the nation, as politicians openly seek face time on the networks, hoping to bathe in the social media spotlight of “Me-ism,” while everything else is purely secondary, like running the government or serving the interests of the nation.   

While America is supposedly a land of equal opportunities, one thing this film makes perfectly clear is how opportunities don’t happen equally, as the privileged take advantage by overlooking the many doors that were opened for them, typically at the cost of excluding the more disadvantaged.  Jews escaped persecution in Europe, as Aaron’s family discovered freedom in the welcoming doors of America, yet blacks have never experienced that same welcoming experience, as the doors have continually been closed for them throughout hundreds of years of history, which is astonishing when you think about it, as it goes back to the era of Columbus.  Even though this autobiographical film is not openly political, the experience of “white privilege” resonates strongly, as the education system fails students from marginalized groups in a disproportional way, while the paths of justice operate only for one of these kids, while the other feels the wrath of racial hatred.  Paul’s parents react with horror when they discover his partner in crime is a black kid, transferring all the blame to that kid, suggesting he’s a “bad influence,” overlooking their own child’s explicit responsibilities, while pulling him from the school and transferring him to Forest Manor, in real-life The Kew-Forest School, an all-white private school located in the affluent neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, the same school attended by his brother, along with Donald Trump and his family, where Donald’s father Fred is on the board of trustees.  Paul is extremely unhappy, as this means he will no longer see Johnny, but he quickly experiences a culture shock at the new school, where he’s required to wear a uniform, catering to upper middle class and wealthy families, with readily available computers in the classrooms.  When Johnny visits on the school playground, Paul pretends to barely know him, painfully aware of how his presence is perceived by the other students, who use the n-word to describe him, mocking his lowly status, while making him the butt of racial jokes.  When Paul attempts to talk about this with his grandfather, a bit ashamed that he didn’t stand up for his friend, his grandfather reveals how “the game is rigged” against marginalized groups in America, who experience a collapse of faith when the nation’s promise of freedom and equality doesn’t apply to them, which may explain his own family’s eager assimilation in pursuit of the American Dream.  While Paul and his family also face discrimination, he has the ability to escape much of it, as they have the resources to help him be successful.  Johnny is not so fortunate, with no support whatsoever in helping him achieve his dreams.  A powerful exposé of privilege and inequality, and how it is systematically perpetuated over time, the film is conscientious but difficult, as it’s a rather blunt depiction, providing little insight or background into Johnny’s character, who comes across as a token black figure, and doesn’t compare well to Barry Levinson’s Proustian sagas of Jewish life in post-war Baltimore in films like AVALON (1990) or LIBERTY HEIGHTS (1999).  In addition, the film has a very muted color palette, making it feel colder as it articulates heavier themes, with Gray using digital for the first time, shot by Darius Khondji, where the camerawork is dark and oppressive.  The Trump family are major donors to this new school, with Paul encountering Fred Trump (John Diehl), a powerful real estate magnate in Queens, in the hallway on his first day.  This period in his life is when Paul begins to understand how race, religion, and social class are used as reasons for bigots to inflict their damaging prejudice on others, often veiled and disguised in patriotic and life-affirming rhetoric which is meant only for a privileged few, perfectly encapsulated in a cameo appearance by Jessica Chastain as Maryanne Trump (Donald’s older sister, a federal appellate judge appointed by Ronald Reagan), who gives a rousing speech to the students about the importance of hard work to achieve success, declaring “you are the elite,” conveniently leaving out the part about inheriting a fortune from her father.  While many may not want to hear this message, just as they tuned out on Jimmy Carter’s prescient “crisis of confidence” message in favor of Reagan’s sunny optimism, but it is crucial nonetheless.