“I'm going to do to Kletzki what Auschwitz couldn't.” Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet)
Marty Supreme is just as disrespectful as that quote but just as outrageously engaging as we watch Timothee Chalamet do another star turn, this time as the titular table-tennis champ (based on champ Marty Reisman) working his way in 1952 to the world championship. To the above quote he adds, “It’s alright. I’m Jewish, I can say that”).
As Chalamet did with Dylan in A Complete Unknown, he becomes his character—brash, ambitious, reckless—a Jewish cultural rocket in the spirit of director Josh Safdie’s magnificent Uncut Gems (with his brother, Benny) starring Adam Sandler.
Audiences will enjoy a Jewish upstart from the Lower East Side (think Budd Schulberg’s What make Sammy Run in a more bruising way) pushing past corporate dinosaurs and resistant family to win the affections of middle-aged Hollywood star Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow), married girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’Zion), and a Japanese audience that delights seeing him table-tennis tortured by their own hero, Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi—a real champ).
Marty is a brilliant American ambition machine winning and losing but carrying the US torch of reckless bravado that won a war and saved cultures world-wide. It takes only a sequence with an aggressive dog to realize the dogs of that world will not let him win completely. Like America, he will continue to offer our youthful zest and bravery to a globe yearning for peace and affection.
Announcing that he is Hitler’s worst enemy, Marty says, “Look at me. I’m here.” Marty Supreme promotes the blessed nature of immigrant ambition and the salutary effect of love. Along with an unusual sports motif, it is a surefire delight that offers the excitements of competition and the blessings of caring. Watch for this estimable dramedy at Oscar time.
Marty Supreme
Director: Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems)
Screenplay: Safdie, Ronald Bronstein (Daddy Longlegs)
Cast: Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love)
Rating: R
Length: 2h 30m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio.Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com