Stress has always been a factor in the Safdie brothers films. The anxiety of poor decision making brought on by Joey Award Nominated Film Uncut Gems was a focal point of the film. It also featured heavily in the brothers first feature, Good Time. Now that the brothers are seperated we see less of it in their pictures, although it’s still certainly present in both Benny’s The Smashing Machine, and now it’s Josh’s turn with Marty Supreme. Each of their sports dramas about someone trying to prove that they are indeed as great as they think they are.

Marty Supreme stars the enigmatic Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet has been on a run of starring as ego driven superstars in just about every performance he has ever given. From Dune’s Paul Atreides to A Complete Unknown’s Bob Dylan, even his turn as Willy Wonka in Wonka, each of these characters feel as though they are just as desperate to prove themselves as their portrayer is. And Marty Supreme’s Marty Mauser is no different. The character is loosely based actual table tennis player Marty Reisman, who much like the film character was based in Manhattan in the 1950s during his award winning run at the sport.

Mauser, for his part, is so full of conviction that he refuses to believe there’s a world in which he can fail. It’s easy, perhaps too easy, to draw comparisons to Mauser and Chalamet’s own ambitions. When asked what he will do if he is unable to make a living playing table tennis Mauser responds “I don’t even let that thought enter my consciousness.” He travels to London to compete in the Table Tennis British Open, and is supremely dominant at the sport. Until he runs up against a humble player from Japan named Endo who bests Marty in the final.

Marty is forced to perform at halftime with the Harlem Globetrottres, a career path he feels is beneath himself. He winds up back in Brooklyn and is immediately robbed of the money he needs to get himself to the National Championship in Japan, where he seeks to redeem himself. The issue is that every choice that Marty makes to get himself closer to his goal, instead feels like a means to separate himself further from his dream. He is rude, obnoxious, over confident, unwilling or unable to view anyone as his equal.

The people that care about him are constantly being sacrificed for his own gain. His friend Wally (Tyler, The Creator), his next door neighbor who is carrying his child Rachel (Odessa A’zion), his business partner Dion (Luke Manley), even his mother (Fran Drescher) are all viewed by him more as obstacles or means to his own end than real relationships. And while it can be difficult watching Marty take advantage of his loved ones, the film does balance out by having him take advantage of a wealthy business mogul and his wife named Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’ Leary) and and also a racist farmer in Jersey (Penn Jillette). Everyone, saint and sinner alike, suffers should they fall into the path of a man determined to live his dream.

There is something to the casting of these characters, particularly the Penn Jillettes, the Kevin O’Leartys that feels thematic in terms of striving for greatness. It’s hard to say that O’Leary or Jillette are THE GREATEST in their respective fields, but they are certainly some of the most well known. Similar to Chalamet their presence bleeds through the moral of the story, to elevate the film into a study of itself. It’s deconstruction of fame and success, and the egos of those who strive for it are on full display at every level. Marty Supreme is at once a cautionary tale for those who would chase down their dreams, and those that might be caught up in the wake of the dreamers.

5/5