With scenes that went viral on TikTok and hilarious dialogue, “Marty Supreme” is the kind of movie that pulls you in immediately and never lets you get comfortable. It wastes no time making you wonder, “What did I just watch?”
Even though it’s set in the competitive table tennis world, the movie leans into satire, choosing absurdity over realism. This makes it difficult to tell when the film is being serious and when it’s poking fun.
“Marty Supreme” is an original story LOOSELY based on the life of table tennis player Marty Reisman. The movie takes place in New York during the 1950s. The film follows rising table tennis star Marty Mauser after a major loss at an international championship, as he fights to earn his way back to the tournament the following year.
Mauser is a con man who swindles his family and friends out of money and feels no remorse whatsoever. For a character who, on paper, sounds extremely unlikeable, Timothée Chalamet’s performance as Mauser is the most captivating acting I’ve seen in the past year.
What I liked
I never understood the hype surrounding Chalamet until NOW. He made a character who is a terrible, selfish person become funny and charismatic through his line delivery. His portrayal of absurd determination and disregard for everyone around him pushes it even further. Chalamet will absolutely win big during award season, given that he recently won a Golden Globe for Best Male Actor in a Motion Picture.
Mauser says things like, “That doesn’t even enter my consciousness,” “You want to get physical? Like an ape?” and “It’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box.” I mean, really, this movie had me cracking up.
Chalamet humanized Mauser and didn’t just let this character be an awful person the whole time (well, he was terrible MOST of the time). But in the last few moments of the film, Mauser sees his newborn son for the first time, and he immediately breaks down crying — the ONLY time we see a different emotion other than fierce determination.
You may have seen the intro scene of “Marty Supreme” on TikTok that people can’t stop talking about — the scene being an animation of Mauser’s sperm impregnating an egg (belonging to Odessa A’zion’s). I’ve never seen such a creative opener, and it set my reaction for the rest of the movie, when all I could say was, “What the hell?”
I appreciate how original this story is because I didn’t know what would happen next, and it kept me guessing.
I also enjoyed the song choices. The beginning and end of the film feature two catchy, famous songs from the ‘80s, yet the film is set in the ‘50s — a choice that I can get behind because they perfectly set the tone.
The viral TikTok opening scene features “Forever Young” by Alphaville. The final scene, where Mauser sees his newborn son, features “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears.
What I didn’t like
While I do appreciate the originality of the story, some scenes felt uncomfortable to watch. I understand that the entire point is to show Mauser will stop at NOTHING to get anything he wants. But as an audience member, sometimes I felt icky.
At one point, Mauser’s bathtub completely caves in through the floor of a hotel and lands on a dog. Then, Mauser cons the dog’s owner out of money, saying he’ll take the dog to the vet, only to LOSE the dog in the middle of nowhere. I felt icky AGAIN when Mauser takes the dog’s owner to find the dog, only for the owner to get fatally shot.
There’s another scene where Mauser is getting spanked by a Ping-Pong paddle to show he’ll do anything to get money. What’s even crazier is that Kevin O’Leary was actually spanking Chalamet’s bare butt. There were no stunt doubles or fake spankings. It was all real. That was too much to see as well. I don’t like that the line crossed into uncomfortable territory multiple times throughout the film.
It was purposeful that no one’s part was allowed to outshine Chalamet’s. I get that Chalamet is the main focus, but all the characters lacked depth and were purely there as plot devices in Mauser’s schemes. With actors like Odessa A’zion, Gwyneth Paltrow and Fran Drescher in the movie, I expected to see more than subpar performances.
The run time for “Marty Supreme” is two hours and 29 minutes. There’s NO world in which it needed to be that long. Some table tennis scenes lasted longer than they needed to, and honestly, no one wants to see 10 minutes straight of people playing Ping-Pong.
The verdict
I’m rating “Marty Supreme” a 2.5 out of five stars because I love the parts that I love, and HATE the parts that I hate — no in-between here. This is a film you do need to see in theaters because it would be harder to be interested and engaged for 2.5 hours straight with distractions at home.
So, if you want to hear Chalamet say funny things like “You want to get physical? Like an ape?” and you can handle the discomfort, then “Marty Supreme” is your next must-watch.
