Marty Supreme (2025) - 8/10

Right away there’s a sense of style and a hint of license to this as a period piece, as an 80s classic soundtracks a 1950s shoe store in New York, where we meet Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet). Selling shoes is not in Marty’s heart though, table tennis is and he’s ambitious to succeed, supremely so. Forget any sense of pedestrian normality, this film is an emotion tour de force. With little time for sick relatives, he’s planning big, to win European tournaments and be the face to break table tennis to an untapped US audience. Honestly he’s annoyingly arrogant, with a frenetic energy that oozes from the screen and sets the pace to dizzying effect. How cinematic is table tennis though. Well set it in dark spot lit rooms with sweat pouring and those dominant 80s songs driving in the background, it works pretty well. Marty fancies himself a player in every sense, he’s not short on confidence. At the table showboating or when pursuing ex-movie star, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow). He doesn’t have much of a plan, so it’s no surprise that things don’t go according to one. Chalamet it has to be said is brilliant. It’s a solid supporting cast, but make no mistake, this is his show and he devours the limelight. As is the case with all great films, this is not about what it seems. It has very little to do with table tennis and everything to do with a chaotically ambitious young man, doggedly grifting his way with a single focus and little care for the destruction that he leaves in his wake… and boy is there destruction. It’s utterly gripping though. Blink and you’ll miss something, usually Marty shafting someone, like his cab driving mate, Wally (Tyler the Creator), clandestine girlfriend, Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and some time manager, Dion (Luke Manley), all of who cling to his orbit. Honestly it’s bonkers, it’s not like it ever lets you get comfortable then pulls the rug. The rug isn’t even on the floor, in the room, or the building. I’m not even sure there is a rug. Crazy as it all seems though, often uncomfortably, the maelstrom all has its purpose. Ramping the bizarre tension to a fever pitch for a finale that proves that as well as boundless energy, Marty Supreme also has heart.

8/10