In an era where bland, often lazy and laughably repetitive celebrity biopics dominate
cinemas, where audiences are hand-held through live-action Wikipedia articles about
these eccentrically gifted and troubled personalities in a binary three-act structure
that ends in their tragic downfall (because talent and success in sport or music
obviously beget failure and neglect in family and mental stability, Hollywood is
content to only scrape at the psychology of why this is) or their miraculous triumph
despite these shortcomings, what Marty Supreme offers us is fairly refreshing. An
energetic, calamitous thrill-ride centred on a slyly charming, terribly likeable
ping-pong hustler whose ego and immorality towers every setback he faces and
forces us to justify why we still root for him every step of the way.
In 1950s New York, Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet – loosely based on real-life
ping-pong wizard Marty Reisman) is a young shoe salesman working for his
overbearing uncle with grand ambitions of being the world ping-pong champion. With
the World Champions in London upcoming, he’ll do whatever it takes to get there –
namely robbing his family for flight money and leaving his life-long friend and
mistress, Rachel (Odessa A’zion) cast aside. Writer-director Josh Safdie makes it
immediately clear that Marty’s purpose is entirely self-serving. He’s not driven by
lifting his poor Jewish family up from the dirt (in fact, he’s more than willing to rip
them off whenever he can), or even mainstreaming the sport itself. Ping-pong fills stadiums overseas and he wants to be the one bringing it to America. He wants to be the world champion. He wants to be the face on the Wheaties box with the merchandised balls and all the fame and fortune he can suck up. It’s him or nothing. And when the conditions in his London barracks aren’t suitable for the global superstar he’s destined to become, he puts himself up the Ritz, where he neglects training, and Rachel, who’s married to an abusive spouse and eight months pregnant with his baby when he returns from his world tour, to seduce faded actress Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) with the same boyish, irresistible determination that leaves
us jarringly entranced with him too.
When the world champion title eludes him in London, he returns to New York a
wanted man, strained from his family and facing a ban from the next tournament for
ripping off the ping-pong association, and the rest of the film takes us on one
disaster after another as Marty has little time to find a thousand dollars; a wild
odyssey that, while electrifying at times, is ultimately bogged down in its scope. He
runs in with the mafia, almost kills a dog, manipulates Rachel and turns a bowling
alley hustle with fellow ping-pong player Wally (Tyler, the Creator) into a literal
firestorm.
These spiralling escapades, while certainly entertaining, fail to really flesh out Marty.
Safdie, who clearly loves writing these nogoodnik conmen plunged into desperation
of their own making (Good Time, Uncut Gems), constantly has Marty running. So
much so that, by the time the nearly three-hour runtime ends, we’re given no reason
to care about the journey or feel any catharsis from its destination. Marty is a likeable
scoundrel. He’s as suave and detestible as Jordan Belfort or any of the athletes or pop
megalomaniacs in the biopics this film is clearly trying to subvert, and we’re
uncomfortable for liking him so much when we know we shouldn’t. But what else?
For all the extravagancies in Good Time, these were offset with quieter moments, where the score wasn’t blaring and the mayhem tranquilised. And it was in these meditations, and the interactions with a cast of supporting characters who felt like
real people ripped from the streets of New York (and, in most cases, actually were), that we truly realised our protagonist’s depths of depravity. It was here that we could genuinely understand, and therefore connect, with the man forefronting all these
shenanigans, which were toned down enough to still keep us grounded in the action.
In Marty Supreme, the chaos is never-ending, and Marty’s conning and rousing,
ironically, feel metronomic. Nothing he does is out-of-character but nothing ever
builds or fleshes out his character either. The loud scope is deafened by its excess.
And while the supporting cast all deliver superb performances (A’zion is a particular
gem; her explosions of rage and cunning are delicately balanced with a sombre
longing and quiet vulreability that delivers the film’s only real surprises); their
characters are just as bombastic as Marty (the absence of the late Buddy Duress, a
star in the Safdie’s prior films, is sorely felt), so there’s no real contrast between
Marty and the mayhem surrounding him. It’s a little too flat.
That being said, Chalamet, perhaps because he’s forced to do a lot of heavy lifting
for his character, truly excels here. He’s delectable. He’s loathesome. But, most of
all, he infuses the film with addictive, nerve-tingling charisma (I’ll be the first to admit,
my heart was racing in his final showdown in Japan). Hopefully here, with the long
lensed-close ups keeping us tight to Marty’s acned skin and beady eyes, dispels with
the nonsensical notion that he’s nothing more than a monotone pretty boy. This is the
closest I’ve felt to an actor embodying the on-screen command of a young Al Pacino
or Dustin Hoffman. No Calvin Klein model could accomplish that.
Marty Supreme is something more than the formulaic biopics spat out of the
Hollywood machine. Go into it expecting a visually beautiful, enthralling, non-stop
spectacle, centred on a career-defining performance from the finest leading man of
this generation.
Just don’t be disappointed when, once the Tears for Fears-accompanied credits roll,
you’re left with very little lingering afterwards.
3/5
Image Credits – The Movie DB
