Timothée Chalamet Serves Up a Career Peak in Marty Supreme, a Ping-Pong Fever Dream Through New York

Timothee Chalamet has been loudly setting his own bar this year. 'Marty Supreme' is him trying to clear it with a paddle, a grin, and about six scams too many.

"pursuit of greatness"

"really top-of-the-line performances" ... "top-level shit"

Yep, he actually said the first one onstage at the SAG Awards, and the latter two while promoting this movie in full Marty Mauser mode. If you have been anywhere near social media, you have seen the bit: Chalamet in Mauser glasses, flanked by people wearing 'hardcore orange' spheres on their heads, hyping his work like a prizefighter. It is a funny collision of actor and character, which fits, because the guy he is playing is a shameless showman who can actually deliver.

So what is 'Marty Supreme' really?

Set in 1950s New York, it looks like a ping-pong movie on the surface, but the sport is more like a frame than the picture. The early and late stretches put Mauser on the table; the middle drops him into a street-level pressure cooker that could sit next to any 70s nail-biter. It also fits right alongside the Safdie vibe: Josh Safdie directs solo this time (Benny went off to make 'The Smashing Machine'), and the movie is packed with oddball casting, spiraling chaos, and sweaty hustlers barking about cash.

Mauser, the hottest thing in American table tennis, is a cocky comet who pulls big crowds and even bigger headaches for his league. He peacocks, wins, and sticks the organization with the bill for fancy hotel rooms. Then he eats it on the big stage, losing to a Japanese upstart wielding a new-style paddle. The loss gnaws at him; a rematch becomes the North Star.

The spiral (and yes, it gets weird)

Fresh off a humiliating world tour where he does polite trick-shot routines for family audiences, Mauser hits U.S. soil and immediately enters Murphy's Law season. Low on money and high on confidence, he tries to squeeze a dangerous gangster over a missing dog. The gangster is played by Abel Ferrara, as in the director of 'Bad Lieutenant,' because of course he is. The blackmail attempt goes sideways, and it is barely a day after Mauser almost kills himself and a stranger when both he and the bathtub he is sitting in drop through a fleabag motel ceiling. The movie is full of these left-field jolts that somehow feel inevitable.

Meanwhile, the relationships

In the middle of the mayhem, Mauser collides with Kay Stone, a faded Hollywood star played by Gwyneth Paltrow. She slips into a crisp British accent and into a fling with Mauser as an escape hatch from her husband, a pen magnate played with reptile-cold energy by Kevin O'Leary. Paltrow has not really been onscreen much outside the MCU and some Ryan Murphy work since 2015's 'Mortdecai,' but a handful of scenes here remind you why she was a 90s fixture: sharp, arresting, and able to turn a room with a look.

Odessa A'zion is also a quiet knockout as Rachel, Mauser's chaotic match in every sense. She is clawing for a way out of a loveless marriage to Ira (Emory Cohen), and she hustles as hard as Marty does, maybe harder. Underneath the grift and the noise, the movie sneaks in a real (and messy) love story. It even opens with a microscope-level sprint of Marty's sperm racing to the finish line, set to Tears For Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World.' Subtle it is not; effective it is.

Chalamet, full-tilt

This is the Timmy show. After nearly going the distance shapeshifting into Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown,' he lands here with a performance that is all voltage and control. He learned to play ping pong well enough that the on-table moments pop like mini sports movies. The film is not about the sport, but when he is swinging a paddle, you get a clean hit of 'Rocky'/'Rudy' adrenaline.

The whole package is familiar in the ways you expect from a Safdie joint, but it hums. Watching Chalamet command the frame has a young-Pacino charge. The man is not chasing greatness here so much as operating in it.

• Timothee Chalamet as Marty Mauser: swaggering American table-tennis phenom; needles the league by expensing luxe hotel rooms; loses to a Japanese underdog with a new paddle; returns from a humiliating family-friendly tour; tumbles through a motel ceiling in a bathtub; botches a dog-ransom scheme; pursues a rematch and any hustle that gets him there.
• Director: Josh Safdie (solo); Benny Safdie is off making 'The Smashing Machine.'
• Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone: faded movie star with a polished British accent, stuck with a pen-magnate husband; finds a lifeline in Mauser. Outside the MCU and Ryan Murphy projects, this is her first real screen pop since 2015's 'Mortdecai.'
• Kevin O'Leary as the pen magnate: chilly, predatory, and a problem.
• Odessa A'zion as Rachel: Marty's partner-in-chaos and secret heart of the film; desperate to leave her marriage; schemes better than he does.
• Emory Cohen as Ira: Rachel's husband, an obstacle she intends to outmaneuver.
• Abel Ferrara as the gangster: the 'Bad Lieutenant' director plays a heavy whose missing dog becomes the centre of a very unwise extortion plan.
• Music cue to note: the opening microscopy dash set to 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World.'

Oscars-wise, do not be shocked if Chalamet is center stage holding a gold guy come mid-March.

'Marty Supreme' hits theaters December 25.