#252: The American spectacle of ‘Marty Supreme’

On a great movie that left me cold

Hey! The below essay is about Marty Supreme and contains spoilers.

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While watching Marty Supreme last week, I kept noticing the film’s eerie parallels to its off-screen life, as if the entire cast had gone method, from Kevin O’Leary as the rich asshole to Gwyneth Paltrow as the retired movie star. No doubt part of director Josh Safdie’s plan. This is most obvious in the reflection of Timothée Chalamet in his character Marty Mauser: both charming, jumpy, unabashedly ambitious. Marty brags about being destined to be on the cover of the Wheaties box; Timmy got on stage at the SAG awards last year and said he wanted to be one of the greats, briefly referencing Michael Jordan, the Wheaties-box record-holder (19 times). Marty spends the entire movie repeating himself: He’s going to win, he’s going to be rich, he’s going to win. On Jimmy Fallon in December, Timmy looked straight into the camera and said: “To dream big and to follow your dreams and not take no for an answer: That’s the spirit of Marty Supreme, Christmas Day, Marty Supreme, dream big, Marty Supreme, Christmas Day. Thank you.”

It’s clear he was inspired by the character, or at least emboldened by him. In many interviews, he’s suggested his interpretation of the movie could have this same impact on others: “This is a movie about sacrifice in pursuit of a dream and it’s something I can relate to deeply,” he told Fallon. “And we live in a bleak time, especially for young people, so this film is an attempt at an antidote to that, and to continue to believe in yourself.” It’s funny to hold all this in mind while actually watching the movie, which, rather than depicting a man overcoming great obstacles through relentless effort and dogged self-belief, depicts something close to the opposite.

Safdie has his own view of it. Recently, he told GQ that, prior to making Marty Supreme, he was inspired by the “hollow feeling” he experienced upon finishing Uncut Gems. The film had just wrapped, and “someone [said] to me casually, ‘What’s next?’ And I started crying because I never thought about that,” he told Frazier Tharpe. “I know it was such a casual, innocent question, but it wasn’t. To me, the dream, it was never about realizing it, it was about the journey.” In that moment, he felt utterly isolated. “I was like, Dreams are so lonely. And I felt so alone.”

My most generous (and distilled) reading of Marty Supreme is that it’s a cautionary tale about the individualistic nature of American ambition. Marty, working as a shoe salesman in 1952 downtown New York City, moonlights as a table tennis player who is hellbent on competing in the world championships, which is usually dominated by players from Europe and Asia. And while his reckless tenacity incites the occasional spark of joy and connection, it mostly drives him toward ruin, or else delivers him pyrrhic victories. By the end of the movie, he’s back home, jobless, penniless, largely friendless, with several warrants likely out for his arrest. As it relates to the table tennis World Championships, he’s technically still a loser.

“I hope this movie … can serve as that engine … that it is okay to dream big,” Timothée told George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. “It’s so awesome to be a part of something that’s not trying to confirm what people already feel about themselves and the world, in some way.” There’s a chance he’s saying all this as marketing for the film’s premise rather than the payoff (he’s clever), or because he genuinely found Marty inspiring despite the character’s penchant for self-sabotage (he’s endearingly earnest), but my suspicion is that he’s falling under the spell of the film itself, which, in its attempt to critique spectacle as the ultimate American meaning-maker, inadvertently celebrates it.

I had a great time watching Marty Supreme. It’s beautifully made: the sets, the score, the wardrobe, the performances, the cinematography. It’s a work of art made by people who appear to be at the top of their game. I was so taken with Timothée’s performance that I spent a lot of the movie racking my brain for why he seemed so familiar, only to realize he simply reminded me of a real person, or rather, real people—the kind I’ve met throughout my life who are charming and idiotic in equal measure. The film has a strikingly lived-in visual texture. It’s a thrill to watch; not once did I wish it was over. Unfortunately, that feeling persisted through the ending, when I still didn’t want it to be over. As in: That’s it?

The emotional center of Marty Supreme is hard to locate. There is little exploration of Marty Mauser’s interiority or specific passion for ping pong (over any other sport); his relationships are explored in only the most surface sense (he lies and betrays). In the end, he cries at the birth of his child, a tonal pivot from the (masculine) pursuit of greatness to the (feminine) circle of life that, to me, felt unearned. With the exception of one scene about an Auschwitz prisoner sharing food with his people rather than keeping it for himself—presented, I think, as a countervailing ethos to Marty’s—the film spends most of its 2.5-hour runtime revering one great man’s thrilling pursuit of exceptionalism. The birth, a symbol for catharsis and profundity, which Marty doesn’t suffer for nor does he personally witness, felt like a sudden, last-ditch attempt at revering, instead, something more grounded and communal.

This is where I think the film’s embodiment of the American ethos Safdie’s trying to critique feels most apparent. The film, with its big budget and splashy marketing campaign, with its eagerness to dazzle and thrill, can’t help but celebrate monomania. Timothée as Marty is too fun to watch, a fool with dreams so big and a talent so undeniable you can’t help but root for him. Safdie was likely aware of this, could employ the film bro’s favorite axiom here: That’s the point! But in the same vein as French director François Truffaut’s famous idea that there’s no such thing as an anti-war movie (because every movie that depicts war inadvertently glorifies it), I think the same can be said of films about self-absorbed American scammers, which may set out to depict monsters, but often become meme-makers for a certain set.

I still sometimes think about Timothée’s 2025 SAG speech—his casual comparisons of actors and athletes, as if making art were no different than playing a sport with objective wins and measurable outcomes. “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” he said, at once understanding the contradiction and disregarding it. This is a very American way to think about art—as a vehicle for achievement. For me, it helps clarify what he might see or appreciate about the Kardashians, with whom he’s now deeply entangled. Their objective achievements, like their eye-watering wealth and influence, have a way of outweighing their subjective impacts in the cultural consciousness. If you want to be undeniable, pointing to the numbers is the only way.

Still, the pursuit of aesthetic greatness in film feels less hollow than the pursuit of profit by any means. Even if I bristle at the seemingly knee-jerk positive reception of movies like this, of the apparently unlimited budget and awards enthusiasm for films about guys being “thrillingly” selfish, I still liked it, and still want to see it again. I’m not even sure I want Timothée to come down to earth—I like him where he is, head in the clouds, blinded by his own passion. Who would he be, and what would he make, if he weren’t? It’s rare to see a celebrity, or see a film, unpoisoned by irony and cynicism, however flawed.

I think Marty Supreme was most successful on the level of spectacle: The feeling that you were watching gifted artists and entertainers at work—still worth a lot, absolutely—rather than being brought closer to something true through art. It felt fitting, for a movie about a charming liar, that I had a wonderful time until the very end, when I was left cold.

“I feel like if you’re not going up, you’re going down,” Timmy said in an interview last month, seated next to Safdie. In the film, such a linear view of human worthiness is supposedly deemed corrupt and futile, but it’s easy to forgive Timmy for such a crude view: Just look at that face.

Last Friday’s 15 things included two podcasts episodes that had me literally taking notes, the results of my months-long search for a new backpack (and also new sweats), a bunch of unconventional writing prompts, and more. The rec of the week was podcast apps.

Last Wednesday’s Dear Danny covered 5 questions about: a boyfriend who (loudly!!) plays video games for hours every night, a questioner who got scolded for crossing her (literal) baby niece’s boundaries, a conundrum involving group sex with coworkers, a 10-year marriage in which the partners share no friends, and a questioner who can’t stop thinking about a guy after a few dates (of course now he’s unavailable). Up now!

Lastly, if you’re haunted by what’s happening in Minnesota and want to help, you can find tons of mutual aid funds at Stand With Minnesota. Sending love and solidarity to my Minnesota readers.

Take care,
Haley

Cover image via Getty | Frazer Harrison / Staff