As extremely acclaimed because it was unrelenting, Uncut Gems felt just like the apotheosis — or no less than the best attainable focus — of creativity wielded by sibling administrators Benny and Josh Safdie. Their respective 2025 returns to solo filmmaking, nonetheless, recommend that working collectively might have diluted their particular person skills: Josh’s Marty Supreme is probably the most intense movie launched but by somebody with the final title Safdie.
Regardless of that prime bar, it’s additionally probably the very best. In a profession that appears to build up solely nice performances, Timothée Chalamet delivers considered one of his biggest but by leveraging his scrappy, boyish charms to make audiences love a personality who’s incessantly something however lovable. A script by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein transforms the real-life story of tennis desk participant Marty Reisman right into a Eighties sports activities film by the use of meticulously recreated Fifties Brooklyn by the use of the Greek fable of Icarus, whereas the director ratchets its splendidly anachronistic journey to a degree of stress that eclipses his work as a part of a filmmaking duo.
Safdie and Chalamet Put Backspin On Eighties Sports activities Film Clichés
Chalamet performs Marty Mauser, a fast-talking, egotistical desk tennis star with nearly as a lot expertise as he has charisma and tenacity. Narrowly escaping a prescribed destiny as the highest salesman at a Brooklyn shoe retailer — and solely by robbing his employer for the wages he earned — Marty jets off to London in opposition to the discouragement of family and friends for a global ping-pong competitors. Underwhelmed by the meager lodging supplied to him by the occasion organizers, he procures a room at a close-by four-star lodge, within the course of catching the attention of Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a film star bored sufficient by center age and her dormant profession to embark on a quick however passionate affair.
Regardless of his bravado, Marty loses within the closing spherical of the competitors to Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), a Japanese participant with a way more modest demeanor — and extra importantly, an unconventional stroke that appears just about unbeatable. Returning dwelling in shame, Marty begins hustling along with his pal Wally (Tyler Okonma) to lift sufficient cash to mount a comeback, whilst he discovers that his childhood buddy Rachel (Odessa A’zion) is pregnant, and insisting that he’s the daddy.
Because the authorities bear down on him for his “housebreaking” and he alienates one individual in his life after one other with an escalating sequence of transgressions, he turns to an unlikely supply of assist for funds: Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), Kay’s business-magnate husband. However even when he’s in a position to persuade Rockwell to bankroll his revenge match with Endo, it could come at a better value than he’s keen to pay — to his profession as a desk tennis participant, a lot much less his dignity.
Suffice it to say that the outline above barely scratches the floor of what occurs within the movie — and, in reality, it solely makes me need to watch it once more proper now. Like Uncut Gems (which Bronstein additionally co-wrote), there’s a constant, chaotic vitality that Safdie maintains that dangers viewers exhaustion, however whereas it’s taking place, it feels completely exhilarating. However, the swings he takes listed below are completely large: within the opening credit, there’s a shot that dissolves from a mother-to-be’s freshly fertilized egg right into a ping pong ball bearing the title of the movie as Marty delivers a punishing serve to an opponent in a high-stakes match.
The movie in some ways recreates the rhythms of an ‘80s sports activities film, specializing in a promising athlete who encounters his fiercest opponent and should combat for the chance to see who between them is actually the very best. It’s straightforward to see the affect of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, and particularly The Coloration of Cash, in the best way the filmmaker spirals across the desk, capturing the game’s simultaneous pace, precision and unpredictability. In truth, Safdie enlists Good Time and Uncut Gems composer Daniel Lopatin to create a rating which, paired with synth-pop classics like “Everyone Desires to Rule the World” and “Without end Younger,” much more vividly evokes the synclavier period of Karate Child and Rad than it does the movie’s Fifties time interval.
But, Safdie units the movie deep in a blue-collar Jewish Fifties New York, and offers such element you’ll be able to’t assist however be reminded of the richly drawn worlds of The primary two Godfather movies, or the misadventures of Max and Noodles in Leone’s 1984 opus As soon as Upon a Time in America — the shut quarters, the group, the simmering tensions and the pragmatism of oldsters and mentors that dangers squashing a younger man’s irrepressible dream. His mom, his uncle, and the adoring lady subsequent door dismiss his confirmed talent as “mishegoss;” it solely appears to encourage him additional.
Mixed with absolute shamelessness, that perseverance produces a path of damage, betrayed or offended souls in his wake, and it’s within the character’s duality that Chalamet delivers work as finely tuned as his character’s desk tennis recreation. There’s something undeniably engaging about Marty’s absolute and unwavering perception in himself and dedication to attain his objectives, however proof of its pejorative impact on everybody (together with him) seems early, and causes increasingly more havoc the extra determined he turns into. As intoxicating because it clearly feels to be welcomed into Marty’s confidence, or to obtain his consideration, Chalamet embraces his immaturity, impulsiveness and selfishness with equal vigor. You perceive why these round him usually appear as dazzled as they’re exasperated by him, incessantly on the identical time.
Paltrow’s semi-retired standing provides an genuine sheen to Kay Stone’s declining film star wattage, however her effortlessness with the position’s complexity — too sensible to be hustled, however simply insecure to let herself be inclined — underscores she’s misplaced none of her personal skills. Navigating an sad marriage to a brute (a simmering Emory Cohen) whereas secretly carrying Marty’s baby, A’zion makes Rachel a worthy counterpart, even co-conspirator, to the would-be ping pong legend’s calculating self-fulfillment. The solar of his magnetic persona burns brightly, however she orbits round him so deftly that she by no means will get obscured.
The movie’s older solid members, from Fran Drescher and Sandra Bernhard to filmmaker Abel Ferrara and Penn Jillette, all handle to ship highly effective turns, the latter two significantly chilling. However Shark Tank investor O’Leary holds his personal in opposition to an in-the-zone Chalamet in a means I wouldn’t have anticipated; a first-time actor, he actually leans on his entrepreneur bona fides to make the character plausible, however his ruthlessness, and but lack of compassion, kinds the proper reverse to Marty. Each scene between the 2 of them feels such as you’ve been put inside a cage with two tigers — one older, extra seasoned and affected person, however the youthful no much less ferocious.
Very like Marty’s enchantment, mileage might differ for the fever pitch that Safdie maintains right here; Josh by no means lets off the fuel compared to the extra measured pacing of storytelling by somebody like, say, Scorsese or Paul Thomas Anderson. However that full-throttle method is so dense and encompasses a lot, together with each grand sports-movie payoffs and a unprecedented arc for its title character, that if something, it over delivers. Although its far-reaching ambitions and plenty of stylistic juxtapositions may make it appear to be the work of two (or extra!) filmmakers, Marty Supreme isn’t only a masterpiece, however feels vividly like a cohesive — and singular — imaginative and prescient.
Marty Supreme
10/10
- Launch Date
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December 25, 2025
- Director
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Josh Safdie
- Writers
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Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
- Producers
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Anthony Katagas, Ronald Bronstein, Timothée Chalamet, Eli Bush, Joe Visitor, Timo Argillander