Yes, that’s right, Ping-Pong.
Chalamet's Marty Mauser wants to rule the sport of Ping-Pong, which during the 1950s, when the story takes place, was mostly associated with neighborhood rec centers or finished basements in suburbia. Marty Supreme tries to do for table tennis what boxing did for Raging Bull; i.e., link the sport to a furious expression of character that says something about ... well ... I’m not sure what.
Operating at peak form, director Martin Scorsese turned boxer Jake LaMotta's story into a steaming brew of anger, suffering, and redemption. Watching Marty Supreme, I sometimes wondered why I was subjecting myself to its pummeling style. The movie can be funny, but it can also feel punishing.
I say this because it’s difficult to watch Marty Supreme without wondering whether Safdie's assaultive style isn't competing with the movie's main character. The camera hovers so close to Chalamet’s face, you can practically count the pores in his skin.
Closeness, though, isn't the same as revelation, and it's not always easy to digest a movie when a director seems to be firing at point-blank range. Safdie favors close-ups and tight shots. His camera nearly pins his characters to the screen.
Fair to say, then, that there are two major performances in Marty Supreme: Safdie’s and Chalamet’s. The makes the movie less a character study than a showy display of acting and directorial bravado.
If nothing else, Safdie can be bold. His movie includes shocking moments. You'll be talking about a scene in which a bathtub crashes through the floor of a flop-house hotel, and Chalamet's knife-edged intensity cuts through the entire movie. Chalamet's playing a character who improvises on the fly, and he pulls it off.
Safdie offers Ping-Pong scenes as he charts Marty's desperate attempts to become a world champion and gain US recognition. A climactic match involves an appearance by Koto Endo, a real table tennis player, but Safdie doesn't overdo footage of Marty's matches. Marty's too busy being a jerk away from the Ping-Pong table, and you’ll be justified if you find yourself asking whether the movie is about Ping-Pong at all.
Marty isn't the least bit likable; he's the kind of guy who makes a remarkably distasteful wisecrack about the Holocaust and then excuses it because he's Jewish. He's a user who believes he's entitled to his devious ways.
An oddball supporting adds pungent flavors. Wisely operating at a slower speed, Gwyneth Paltrow plays a fading movie star who sleeps with Marty.
Married to the entrepreneurial owner of a pen company (Kevin O'Leary), Paltrow's Kay Stone may be acting out her rage at her husband. Maybe Marty's primal energy and brashness turn her on. Marty wants the pen company to sponsor his effortsm, and his relationship with O'Leary's character becomes increasingly important.
When we first meet Marty, he's working at a shoe store owned by his uncle (Larry "Ratso" Sloman). Sloman's Uncle Murray wants Marty to manage his store, but Marty won't settle for life as a retail schlub. He wants more. He wants everything.
Odessa A'zion plays Rachel, a married woman with whom Marty cheats. Rachel becomes pregnant, but Marty fears attachments will interfere with his single-mindedness. Rachel, by the way, is married to Ira (Emory Cohen), also a jerk -- albeit a less ambitious and talented one than Marty.
Tyler Okonma (a.k.a., Tyler, the Creator) signs on as a taxi driver, a pal of Marty who helps him work his way through his many jams.
Director Abel Ferrara, a director who knows plenty about intensity, has a notable turn as Ezra Mishkin, a sleazy criminal with whom Marty gets crosswise.
Mostly set in New York City, the movie treats New York as a seedy cauldron where Marty's sickness blisters and boils.
Perhaps as relief, the movie also travels to London, Tokyo, Paris, and Cairo as Marty ceaselessly scrambles for money to support his Ping-Pong quest, a search that improbably leads to a lethal episode in New Jersey. Pieces of the story break off in slabs.
It's possible to view Marty Supreme as a twisted, go-for-broke comedy. Safdie treats Marty's stint as a halftime act for the Harlem Globetrotters as an opportunity to add laughs.
Bouncing from one thing to another like a Ping-Pong ball slammed against a wall, Marty Supreme is fueled by Marty's frenzy and Safdie's whiplash editing, but a last-minute attempt at redemption struck me as unconvincing -- unless Safdie intended it as a kind of cruel joke in his formula-defiant effort. Whatever was intended, I didn't buy it as a point of rebirth and transformation.
Safdie (Uncut Gems) is no stranger to frantic levels of intensity. At times, I got caught up in Safdie's relentless pacing, even as I wished the movie would stop to take a breath. Marty Supreme didn't bore me, but Marty's aggression, along with some of the humiliations he experiences, left me with a sour aftertaste.
Or to reiterate: Instead of getting under your skin, getting in-your-face may just get on your nerves.*
*For the record: Director Josh Safdie, who co-wrote the screenplay for Marty Supreme with Ronald Bronstein, treated real-life Ping-Pong champion Marty Reisman's life as a springboard for a movie that fictionalizes much of its main character's world and some of the characters who inhabit it. Reisman died 2012 at the age of 82. The movie struck me as more a work of fiction than anything else, which is why I didn't mention any of this in the body of my review, but am adding it as an addendum for those who have read about the movie's connection to a real-life figure.
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