This week I wanted to jump back into the movie scene as I am on a journey to watch all the films up for an Oscar. This journey led me to catch director Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” a fictionalized homage to the life of Marty Reisman, a star table tennis player in the 1950s and 60s.
The film follows Marty, a young shoe salesman and pro table tennis player on his journey to attempt to win the world championship. Along the way we watch him navigate through two affairs, become a father, dabble in illegal hustling and gambling, steal, lie but never cheat his way into feeding his pride. All while taking on the world’s current leading table tennis champion.
As a Timothée Chalamet fan, I even went into this hesitant. Worried that we’ve seen too much of Chalamet in the past few years, in other films such as, “A Complete Unknown,” “Wonka,” the “Dune” series, “Lady Bird” and many more after his breakout role in, “Call me by your name.” However, he – yet again – did not disappoint in playing the lead role of Marty Mauser.
Before I jump too far into his excellent performance, there were quite a few unexpected but very exciting co-stars that are worth mentioning. Each served as a major enticement for me to catch this film in theaters, starting with singer-songwriter Tyler the Creator (Tyler Okonma) as the best friend, or closest to a best friend that Marty could have had, Wally. Prior to this film, Okonma has not done any other acting other than voicing a character in the animated series “Big Mouth” and small roles on shows “Kidding,” and “The Mindy Project.” Having no previous experience on the big screen did not hold this incredibly talented showmen back. In an interview with Vanity Fair he shared that he’s eager for his next role.
“Hair, an accent, a scar on my face, a limp, please…” Tyler the Creator said. “If anyone is going to read this, you got a crazy role, please give it. I don’t want nothing super regular.”
After seeing him take on Wally and match the experienced Chalamet, I can honestly say I would love to see him take on more film roles in the future. One would think with his known voice, cadence and tone that he would be hard to see as the character and not his musical persona, but I feel all those aspects of him did the opposite of distracting and hindering the believability. He walked the line of comedy and sincerity perfectly. On screen we didn’t get a ton of time between his character and Chalamet’s, however their interactions, dialogue and chemistry were done so well that as a viewer you felt like you knew of their friendship for a lot longer than what was given to us on screen.
Another face I was super excited to see was Fran Drescher as a smaller but emotionally impactful role, Marty’s mother. I was a kid when the show “The Nanny” played back to back on “Nick at Nite.” Drescher played such an iconic role as the Nanny that I was shocked that it wasn’t until after the credits rolled that I realized she had played the mother in this film.
This movie did so many things right, in my opinion. I would be shocked if it doesn’t win a single award at the Oscars. Besides the stunning cinematography, the film did a wonderful job as a time piece set in the 1950s. Between the costuming, cars and colors, this film really did such an incredible job of transporting you through time. The casting was done so well, as mentioned before with Chalamet, Drescher, Okonma, but also with the two female leads played by Gwynth Paltrow and Rachel Mizler.
Director Safdie’s single handedly brought my personal faith back into future A24 productions, with his ability to capture such an average tale in such an emotionally magnanimous way.
For fans of other films like, “Boogie Nights,” “Uncut Gems,” “Good Time,” “The Hustler” and “After Hours” this film is most definitely for you. A chaotic-high stress emotional roller coaster, with what some may call a relentless pace, I give this table-tennis-American-dream-centric film a solid 4.5 out of 5 on the spicy scale.
Next week I will be straying from the current flicks and coming up with a list of unusual Valentine’s related films to toss on, but stay tuned for the week after when I dive into “Wuthering Heights,” set to release in theaters Feb. 13. I plan to find out if it’s an 1800’s adaptation worth watching.