Marty Supreme is the sports biopic that Martin Scorsese didn’t make. Josh Safdie’s Oscar-nominated film pays heavy tribute to Scorsese’s love for lengthy takes with fluid camera movements, rat-a-tat dialogue and improvised performances in which the line between being and acting is blurred. “Marty” is also the nickname of the legendary American director.
The anarchic comedy, led by a terrific Timothee Chalamet, kicks off in Scorsese’s favourite hunting ground, New York City. Chalamet is Marty Mauser, inspired by American table tennis player Marty Reisman.
Marty Supreme is set in 1952. Memories of World War II – the Holocaust, Japan’s defeat, America assuming its position as the so-called Leader of the Free World – linger in the background and then barge to the front. The professional table tennis scene is rough enough to allow for moments of unchoreographed fun and performative displays.
This set-up is both apt and suited for the shambolic Marty. Desperate for cash and validation, Marty leaps from one hustle to the next with the same speed with which he lobs ping-pong balls.
Co-written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, the film sees Marty streak like a blur across the screen, barely pausing to regard the wreckage he leaves behind. Among the people whom he scars are his married lover Rachel (Odessa A’zion), the taxi driver Wally (Tyler, The Creator) and the wealthy Rockwell couple.
Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary), also a New Yorker, recognises something of himself in Marty’s endless deal-making. Marty’s affair with Milton’s actress wife Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow) is partly passionate and partly opportunistic – the diving line is slim. Marty’s loss to Japanese champ Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) is so humiliating that Marty launches his most daring scheme yet: to travel to Japan and defeat Koto on home ground.
Apart from Scorsese’s ghost, the film has a couple of other actual legends. Filmmaker Abel Ferrara plays a mysterious gent whose missing dog yields a sub-plot that goes on for far too long, but does affirm Marty’s lack of scruples when it comes to money, the feelings of others – and dogs.
The writer Pico Iyer makes his acting debut as Ram Sethi, the head of the International Table Tennis Association who is appalled by Marty’s manner, and lack of manners. Like Muhammed Ali, Marty is a motormouth, but unlike Ali, he hasn’t yet proved his worth.
These characters, and others, weave in and out of a frenetic narrative that revolves around Marty’s braggadocio. While there are thrilling scenes of table tennis matches, the movie is a character study of a young man who is confidence trickster and sporting talent rolled into a messy heap.
The fast-paced action involved in table tennis is the perfect metaphor for a character in a tearing hurry to conquer. Marty is both the American dream and its nightmare in all its brash, crude and entitled glory. He’s hardly alone. Milton is a particularly odious example of the world that Marty inhabits.
With its atmospheric visuals, overlapping conversations, shouty exchanges and catastrophic situations, Marty Supreme dares viewers to look away from the screen. Josh Safdie and Ronald Bernstein have also edited the film, and perhaps are too close to the material to see how enervating Marty’s hubris can be at times.
Shot by Darius Khondji mostly on 35mm stock, the 152-minute movie has a grainy, tactile feel. Khondji’s frames are filled with the faces of the actors at times. The performances match this intensity, with everyone in Marty’s orbit simply unable to shake him off. There are fine turns by the supporting cast, especially by Gwyneth Paltrow and Odessa A’zion.
Timothee Chalamet’s immersive and superbly timed performance proves just why Marty is a draw even at his repulsive best. Marty is flamboyant and obnoxious, self-aware but also short on empathy – something that the comedy, which revels in its excesses even as it critiques American-style striving, reveals brilliantly.
Josh Safdie’s brother Benny Safdie also made a sports biopic, the conventional and dull The Smashing Machine, in 2025. While the films share sequences set in Japan, Marty Supreme is far sharper in its political flourishes.
There’s an extra layer of competition added to a movie about hyper-competitiveness. One of the Safdie brothers has better understood the selfishness, ugliness and righteousness that underpin the pursuit of success in the global sporting arena.
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