If Marty Mauser ever told the truth a single time in his entire life, it was probably by accident. To call Marty a compulsive liar would be both entirely accurate and somewhat inadequate. Marty, the hero of the new film Marty Supreme, elevates the telling of lies into an art form unto himself. Marty's a table-tennis player by trade, but his true vocation is hustling. He seems to think that if he believes in what he says with enough conviction, he can manifest anything into reality.
In other words, Marty is a Josh Safdie character. Previously, Safdie worked with his brother Benny; they co-directed films like Good Time and Uncut Gems about desperate strivers who seem to exist in worlds made entirely out of quicksand; every effort they make towards freedom sinks them into deeper and deeper trouble. This year the Safdies each directed their own solo projects. Benny Safdie made the technically impressive but narratively dry sports biopic The Smashing Machine. Josh made Marty Supreme, which feels from top to bottom like a true Safdie brothers movie: Tragically sad, thrillingly exhilarating, and infused with authentically anxious New York City energy.
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That's where Marty Supreme begins, in a humble women's shoe store in the 1950s. Hustler supreme that he is, Marty (Timothée Chalamet) is the shop's best salesman, and he's on the fast track to becoming a manager -- a path to financial stability he is determined to obliterate as quickly and as destructively as possible. In his spare time, Marty is one of the best ping pong players in the world, and he dreams of parlaying his hobby into a lucrative career that could elevate both the sport of table tennis and his own fortunes all at once.
If Marty could focus all of his energies on that goal, he might just achieve it. But Marty bounces like a ping pong ball from one distraction to the next. In Marty Supreme's opening minutes, he consummates an affair with a lifelong (and married) friend named Rachel (Odessa A'zion) in the store's basement stockroom, impregnating her and instantly adding a ticking clock to his scramble for wealth and fame. When Marty's boss -- who also happens to Marty's stepfather -- refuses to pay him the money Marty needs to pay for his trip to the table tennis championships in Japan, he robs the store, steals the cash, and jets across the world. (This and every moment in the film is scored with a soundtrack of temporally anachronistic and tonally perfect '80s pop hits like Alphaville's "Forever Young" and Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World.")
In Japan, Marty inches closer to stardom, then f -- s it all up over and over. He charms a wealthy businessman -- played (extremely well!) by Kevin O'Leary, AKA Shark Tank's "Mr. Wonderful" -- but then turns down a job offer because it bruises his ego to do so. He also begins secretly wooing the businessman's beautiful trophy wife, a former actress named Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), and when Marty returns to New York, his stepfather wants him arrested and Rachel's husband wants him dead. That's all before Marty agrees to care for the injured dog of a drifter -- played (also extremely well!) by film director Abel Ferrara -- only to bail on taking the dog to the vet like he promised so he can go hustle table tennis at a local bowling alley for some easy cash instead.
Marty keeps piling problem atop problem. Each temporary solution he finds sets off another crisis that must be defused, sparking yet another emergency -- for 150 straight minutes. If you thought Uncut Gems was too chill a cinematic experience, Marty Supreme is the movie for you. (If another excellent 2025 release hadn't already taken it, One Battle After Another would have worked very well as an alternate title.)
Josh Safdie crafts a story the way a juggler conceives a routine. How many balls can I keep in the air? Can I toss a sword in with the balls? What if the sword was also on fire? What if I kept juggling all this stuff while I simultaneously walked on a high wire? Should I add one more thing after that? For Safdie, the answer is always yes.
The same goes for Marty. (These things may be connected.) This man appears pathologically incapable of accepting a minor victory when an even more glorious one seems tantalizingly within reach -- even if the attempt to grab that brass ring may cost him what he's already gained. Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein have a knack as dramatists for twisting the knife in their characters' backs in the most exquisite of ways -- to tease giving Marty everything he's ever wanted, only to snatch it away at the last moment. His trials and temptations feel almost Biblical, and the film begins to assume the dimensions of a cautionary tale about a divine retribution for the sin of pride. (It may be worth noting here that Marty's Judaism is a not-insignificant part of his identity.)
Marty is constitutionally very similar to Adam Sandler's schlemiel from the Safdies' Uncut Gems -- with the key difference that Marty is still in his 20s, a far more forgivable age to be such a cocky screwup. You want to hate this guy for his arrogance and the way he repeatedly sabotages his own successful. But he's played with such dynamic verve and genuine movie-star charisma by Timothée Chalamet that you can't help but root for him anyway, especially as the stakes mount and he refuses his quest to become the world's greatest table tennis player despite the mountain of evidence that he absolutely should. He seduces the audience the same way he seduces Rachel and Kay and everyone else in his orbit.
Safdie refuses to release any of Marty Supreme's carefully accumulated tension until its surprising finale, which brings the story full circle back to its opening moments. Without spoiling how the film ends, let me pose a few questions for you to think about after you see it. In the final scene Marty makes several bold and direct statements to another person; statements that earlier in the film would have felt entirely out of character. So the question becomes: Has this journey around the world and back changed Marty? Is what he saying the truth? Or is this just another lie in a life full of them?