Film review: Marty Supreme (plus ticket giveaway)

The energy in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is equal parts exciting and disorientating. If you know the film Safdie made with his brother, Uncut Gems then you know what expect. Fast cuts, quick snappy line deliveries, and a New York that’s a unique loud and busy urban landscape. You cling to your seat holding your breath for the whole two-and-a-half hours, that are edited in such a lively way and with so much zest, like a Dizzy Gillespie piece playing inside a pub on a Friday night.

The Marty of the title is Timothée Chalamet, the best shoe salesman at his uncle’s shop on the Lower East Side in the 1950s. But his dream is to become the best table tennis player in the world. Marty finds his way at representing the United States in an International tournament in London where his larger-than-life antics charm the audience but annoy the organisation. As part of his grift, because as a good American hero, Marty is a grifter, he needles his way into a five-star hotel and charges it to the organisation of the tournament. He meets and courts a famous washed-up actress (played by Gwyneth Patrow) and her millionaire husband, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) and spends all he can in the hopes he’ll pay it all back when he wins the tournament. Which he won’t, losing to the Japanese player (Koto Kawaguchi).

Back in New York, Marty refuses to face reality. He needs to gather money for an upcoming tournament in Japan with the added bill he collected at the hotel. His girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) is now pregnant, his mother (Fran Drescher) can’t keep him at home for long enough, and every decision he makes creates a new set of enemies that are progressively more dangerous. Rockwell offers him a way out, an exhibition match against the Japanese player that he will lose to please the Japanese audience. His agent recommends he tours with the Harlem Globetrotters and their variety sport show. None of it is ideal for Marty who takes his skills as a serious art that can’t be perverted by circus acts or marketing ploys.

Instead, Marty does what he does best, he grifts. So, it’s like Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, a fast-paced race against time to trick a system they think they can control. Marty and Howard (Sander in Gems) are close in their ease to transverse a world that’s made for them to fail. The difference is that Marty has his entire life around him, his dedication to success blinds him to his responsibilities at home, of being a good caring son, a good partner and father, of doing his part for his community. Marty believes in the unattainable American Dream, the one Rockwell and his wife sell.

Safdie sees America in an interesting frame. Sometimes he reminds me of John Cassavetes and an early Sydney Pollack. He’s endlessly fascinated by the people who can’t see the game is rigged against them. There’s a terrific sequence with Marty and Wally that could’ve been perfectly inserted into Robert Rossen’s the Hustler, but Safdie doesn’t stop in a confrontation and continues to escalate way past what we expected, building up like a house of cards everyone else can see is about to crash.

That pathos is the driving force of this film. Safdie demystifies American exceptionalism as a fruitless endeavour that is put to check by the ever-powerful capitalist forces. It’s funny that O’Leary is in real life that obnoxious millionaire from Shark Tank, here effectively playing a version of himself that doesn’t seem exaggerated. He’s the villain and a representation of Marty’s goal that he doesn’t understand to be unachievable. O’Leary is fantastic, which vindicates Safdie’s bravery in his cast.

Chalamet is good. He’s a charming actor with an erratic disposition that fits perfectly the chaotic flair of the film, but my MVP is A’zion who, like Julia Fox in Gems stands up to the beating heart of the story. She sells the tragedy of her dedication to Marty and the real consequences he must face for his actions, and A’zion doesn’t even flinch for a moment, outshining Chalamet in their scenes together.

If there’s a fault in Marty Supreme it’s how the ending felt too much like Safdie having his cake and eating it too. The ironic poetry of Gems is replaced here by a sentimental moral take that feels at odds with the film’s thesis. Before the big climax, Safdie drags Marty down to his most degrading position, and it feels prescient of what is to come, and how Marty needs to, for the first time, rebel against the power of capital. But actions hold lasting consequences and Safdie refuses to address that for a simplistic happy ending.

That said Marty Supreme is a triumph. For the first time without his brother Benny, who directed by himself last year’s The Smashing Machine, Safdie takes the mantle of the better film of the two. His vivacious spirit is contagious and entertaining, and his vision for America curious. Not pessimistic, not really endorsing it. It’s a world of monsters and saints battling to crawl up the bottom of well, constantly failing but fuelled by an ambition they’ll never reach. But they have a whole lot of fun doing it.

Verdict: 4 out of 5
For everyone who revelled in Uncut Gems’ unnerving intensity. Marty Supreme may not be as complete, but it’s larger and more grounded in its themes.

Ticket giveaway – Saipan

LSJ and Kismet Movies have six double passes for the upcoming Irish soccer film SAIPAN.

The thrilling story of the infamous confrontation between iconic Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke) and his national team manager Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan) during the Irish team’s preparations for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The intense rivalry between these two personalities transcended the game, gripping an entire nation and the sporting world as a whole. On the surface, the feud was all about standards, but deep down it was an incredible story of two men whose rivalry and contempt surpassed the sport they loved. This is the definitive account of one of the most fractious fallings-out in the history of sport. In cinemas February 5. Watch the trailer here.

For a chance to win one of the passes, email your LawID number to journal@lawsociety.com.au with the subject line SAIPAN by Tuesday January 28.