Marty Supreme understands how ambition can ignite a spark, but also how devastating it can be when time, choices, and circumstance stand in the way.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
When Marty Supreme first screened at the New York Film Festival as a secret screening, the wave of positive reviews felt overwhelming. Everyone seemed to agree it was the best film they’d seen not only at the festival, but all year. But how could absolutely everyone agree? Was it real, or was it simply performative praise driven by the bandwagon effect? Ever since the Safdie brothers split, and the announcement that they would both make movies separately, there has been endless discourse about which brother is the better filmmaker, which one truly has it, and whether Marty Supreme would surpass The Smashing Machine or if both would be equally great. With so many questions and speculations in the air, this flood of glowing reviews initially felt less like genuine enthusiasm and more like people pushing one brother’s agenda (especially after all the mixed reviews The Smashing Machine received). But I can assure you that this is not the case. Believe it when people say that Marty Supreme has everything it takes to be a serious contender for best film of the year; it’s absolutely everything you could’ve asked for from a film.
Written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, who also directed the film, Marty Supreme is a chaotic and overstimulating ride in the best possible way. It keeps you on the edge of your seat for its entire 150-minute runtime, which flies by so quickly that, between us, the film could have been an hour longer and I still would have watched it. Who would have thought table tennis could be so exhilarating? Only a Safdie brother could make this sport feel this intense, delivering a film that is incredibly well shot and relentlessly effective, because let’s be honest, is there anything more boring than ping pong? (Yes, there is, but that’s not a real question.)
Marty Supreme opens to Alphaville’s Forever Young, a song that captures the “bittersweet human desire to stay young, reflecting on lost dreams, missed chances, and the fleeting nature of life.” Right from the beginning, you can hear the lyrics, “Forever young. I want to be forever young. Do you really want to live forever? Forever and ever,” which makes everything clear right away: Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is in search of something more, something bigger.
Marty works in his uncle’s shoe shop, casually dates his childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’Zion), and drifts through his twenties with overwhelming confidence, bordering on cockiness, all while dreaming big. More than anything, he wants to be known, to achieve greatness, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get there, even if it means stealing, lying, and burning a few bridges along the way. In his pursuit of success, he crosses paths with numerous figures, including Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose beauty and commanding presence leave him anything but indifferent.
Marty Supreme truly has everything it needs to be considered one of the best films of the year, from the script and performances to the music (both the iconic needle drops and Daniel Lopatin’s frantic score that will make your heart race), cinematography, and editing. Only a few films this year have succeeded in excelling across every element, and this is undeniably one of them. Timothée Chalamet gives the best performance of his career, and no matter how much time people are on screen, they all deliver great performances, from Kevin O'Leary and Fran Drescher to Odessa A’Zion (a revelation to me) and Gwyneth Paltrow, whose comeback is a pure delight. Paltrow is such an incredible performer, whether it’s onscreen or on stage, and I just hope that her role in Marty Supreme is the first of many to come.
But Marty Supreme is not defined solely by its technical achievements. Beneath them lies a deeper, more resonant story, something that is deeply relatable to anyone who has dreams and ambitions, and that is ultimately what makes the film so great.
One of the things I love most about Safdie’s film is how Timothée Chalamet’s and Gwyneth Paltrow’s characters mirror each other. Kay’s attraction to Marty may seem odd at first, making you wonder why she would pay attention to him, and even more so why she would attend his table tennis tournament, but as the film progresses, you come to realize that they’re more alike than we could’ve imagined.
Unlike Marty, Kay Stone is a retired actress and socialite in her 50s, now married to a wealthy businessman. What could they possibly have in common? But as Paltrow stated, Kay “had a very rough road to get to stardom” and ended up walking away from this big career to marry “an unsuitable, but very wealthy man,” who doesn’t make her happy at all. She once dreamed big too, but she gave it up “for security,” and it all faded away, her spark too, until she met Marty, whom I feel reminded her of herself, what she went through to get to the career she had, what it felt like to have dreams and to dream big, and, in a way, reignited the spark she once had.
Like Marty (and Kay), we all have goals and dreams we want to pursue, but the journey to get there can be extremely challenging and isolating. Sometimes those dreams seem unrealistic, even crazy to others, and we end up being the only person we can rely on. Then, the only thing we have left is the dream itself, this idea of greatness and its outcome. Dreaming big is sometimes the only thing we have to keep going and to keep trying to achieve what may seem impossible at some point. Dreaming big is what fuels the spark within ourselves; it’s what nourishes us. And that’s precisely the only thing Marty had. A dream (or so he thought).
Marty Supreme resonated with me on such a personal level because that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling for the past year (minus the cockiness). I, too, dream big; there are so many things I want to do, so many things I want to achieve. Coming from a small town of nearly 3,000 people, opportunities in the world of cinema have never really felt within reach. Carving my place in this world meant moving on my own to a bigger city, hours away from everything I’ve ever known, which can feel extremely isolating, especially since no one in my family shares the same dreams or ambitions. When I want something, I want it fast, and I want it big — I want to play in the same league as everyone else right away. I’m a very eager person; when I have something in mind, I don’t let it go. Ever since founding my own outlet, I’ve been knocking on every door I can, and probably, just like Marty, burning a few bridges along the way. Just like in Marty Supreme, everything feels a bit chaotic, overstimulating, and overwhelming, and it’s that feeling — that sense of greatness you desperately want to achieve — that has been resonating with me so profoundly.
But the truth is, greatness takes time, dreams take time, and we often already have so much right in front of us, but we’re too blinded by getting more and more that we tend to forget to appreciate what we have, and sometimes we don’t even need more than that. By the end of the film, Marty realizes that he already has everything he ever needed: love, people who care for him, and a family. When Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World started playing, I couldn’t hold back my tears. That scene stands as one of the most emotionally powerful scenes I’ve seen on the big screen this year. And even though that scene is about Marty realizing that he got everything he ever needed, I couldn’t help but think about Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, who didn’t have the same chance as Marty. Unlike him, putting her career on hold to get married and have a family broke her, and she ended up living a rather sad and lonely life: “a succession of disappointments and tragedies,” because she wasn’t surrounded by the right people, by people who loved her and cared about her.
Marty Supreme ultimately reminds us that dreaming big is both a gift and a risk, the thing that keeps us alive, but also the thing that can consume us if we’re not careful. It isn’t just about Marty Mauser’s rise, but about two people standing at opposite ends of life, bound by the same longing for greatness. One gets a second chance; the other never does. The tagline “Dream big” truly only makes sense once you’ve watched Marty Supreme, because the film understands how ambition can ignite a spark, but also how devastating it can be when time, choices, and circumstance stand in the way. It’s in that fragile balance that the film finds its most haunting and beautiful truth.
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