American cinema’s fake-it-til-you-make-it brigade – Catch Me If You Can’s Frank Abagnale Jr, Moses Pray in Paper Moon, Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, Uncut Gems’ Howard Ratner, Barry Lyndon and all those other hustling antiheroes – has a dazzling new addition. But, with his skittish chutzpah and pathological lack of self-doubt, Timothée Chalamet’s ever-calculating ping pong player Marty Mauser has something most of those others lack: real talent to back up the front.
In Josh Safdie’s sports movie-cum-crime caper, Marty is a gifted but impoverished ping-pong player who’s only an inch or two from conquering all. By the terms of his own cutthroat world, he’s a loser who lives within touching distance of glory. One more push could make all the difference. Or get him killed.
Safdie, who co-writes with Uncut Gems’ Ronald Bronstein, spins this sorta-kinda true story into a mile-a-minute affair with a twinkle in its eye. (Marty is based on late ’40s table tennis champion Marty Reisman, whose nickname, ‘the Needle’, spoke to his jabbing wit as much as his wiry frame.)
And what a confederate Safdie has in Chalamet. The Dune star has been immodestly talking up his performance on the film’s press tour and, to borrow from Tropic Thunder, it seems a lot like a case of not dropping character until the DVD commentary. And let’s pray there is one because there’s a lot to unpack in this puckish figure whose pioneering outlook is articulated by Daniel Lopatin’s synth score and some ’80s bangers – Everybody Wants to Rule the World, New Order’s Perfect Kiss et al.
It’s a mile-a-minute affair with a twinkle in its eye
The most vivid depiction of Jewish life on the Lower East Side since Once Upon a Time In America, it’s a film of indelible faces: Odessa A'zion (I Love LA) is terrific as Marty’s pregnant girlfriend; ’90s indie cinema’s enfant terrible Abel Ferrara adds sleazy energy as a petty criminal whose missing dog gifts Marty another cash-making wheeze; Tyler Okonma, aka Tyler, the Creator, is a natural in his debut role as Marty’s put-upon pal; and Shark Tank entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary makes the leap from reality TV to bring gruff menace as the ink-pen mogul whose patronage turns to poison.
Best of all is Gwyneth Paltrow as half-forgotten silver-screen star Kay Stone, who’s drawn to Marty’s cocky charms and bemused by his attention, but sees through his hustle from several blocks away. It’s a great comeback role for Paltrow, equal parts silk and steel, but everyone is good here, every character well-drawn.
Marty Supreme is a stunning achievement, a breathless yet precisely controlled joyride full of vivid characters, hairpin turns and did-that-just-happen moments – and a modernist fairy tale about big ambitions colliding with grubby street-level realities and capitalism’s seedy imperatives. This is a film that’s built to last.
In US theaters Dec 25, and UK and Ireland cinemas Dec 26