Marty Supreme 4K 2025 Ultra HD 2160p

The story of table tennis player Marty Mauser. The film is partly based on the biography of ping-pong champion Marty Raisman (1930–2012).

User Review

1952. New York. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a 23-year-old shoe salesman, turns down a promotion to manager because he has big dreams. He is passionate about table tennis and firmly believes that his future lies in the sport, so he desperately needs money to compete in a championship taking place in England. Marty is convinced he is the favorite to win the competition, until his path crosses with the brilliant Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), a quiet Japanese superstar. Marty loses the match, loses control, and, as a result, loses credibility in the eyes of the judges and potential sponsors, but, crucially, he doesn’t lose his enthusiasm. This film could have been the quintessential sequel to those quintessential, uplifting sports biopics with a retro vibe about the importance of self-belief, but Josh Safdie, my great hope in contemporary cinema, has made an absolutely insane (in the best sense of the word) film not about the past, but about the present—about the hopelessly lost battle between the American Dream and the American capitalist machine. And it’s also one of the most eccentric films about love. Yet there is hope in *Marty Suprem*.

And this film also has an excellent screenplay, which is only partially based on the biography of Marty Reisman, a five-time bronze medalist at the World Table Tennis Championships. For those who are skeptical of sports movies, I hasten to reassure you—there’s very little sports action in the film, as the main plot focuses on Marty’s frantic, money-driven race. For two and a half hours, Marty is obsessed not with training, not with doubts, and not even with injuries. Marty needs to compete in the championship, and for that he needs sponsors, but the sponsors see Marty as a clown, so he tries to make it on his own by various means—remarkably, with an invariably smug grin—which is why this 2.5-hour adventure could easily be mistaken for a great American picaresque novel in the vein of Saul Bellow’s *The Adventures of Augie March*. I love it when a touch of literary flair slips into the plot. There are many quirky moments in “Marty Supreme,” and so it can also be described as anecdotal, but, it seems to me, without fidelity to its own style, all these plot twists would look out of place. That’s why I’m grateful to Josh Safdie, and I certainly don’t consider it repetitive that he draws on the narrative style of *Uncut Gems*—only in *Marty Supreme* everything comes together in a much more romantic way, with more irony than cynicism.

In *Uncut Gems*, Josh and his brother explored the large intestine, but in *Marty Supreme*, Josh, now alone, is captivated by the mystery of conception—during the opening credits, hundreds of Marty-Chalamets rush toward an egg cell that transforms into a tennis ball—a symbolic dream takes on flesh and blood. I am completely unfamiliar with Marty Reisman’s biography, but I am familiar with the Safdie brothers’ cinema, so Timothy Chalamet’s character reminded me of Howard Ratner—more of a wheeler-dealer than a creator (“I can sell shoes to an amputee!”), but since Chalamet is younger, his arrogance and ambition are boundless. Reality often knocks him down to earth, but that’s why he’s Mouse—to tirelessly navigate obstacles—and Timothée Chalamet fits this role incredibly well; on the cusp of thirty, he still looks like a nimble youngster, nimbly slipping under women’s skirts. Plus—he’s a Jew who’s allowed to crack dangerous jokes. All this outward camouflage and ostentatious sense of superiority are absolutely essential throughout the narrative, as they serve as a counterbalance against the backdrop of the uncompromising finale. It’s hard to see Marty Mauser as a hero, but it’s also impossible not to sympathize with him and even admire him—after all, it’s always wonderful when a person has principles.

What’s also wonderful is Josh Safdie’s ability to feel the music and blend what seems like such disparate elements—a 1950s aesthetic and 1980s Euro-synth-pop—which are, in fact, highly symbolic (the beginning and end of the Cold War). I’d call it epic synth-pop, at times atmospheric, but with some unsettling, melancholic undertones. That’s why Safdie so often explores inner spaces, and why this isn’t the first time Josh has collaborated with Daniel Lopatin—together, they create a kind of visceral synth-psychedelia. Gorgeous.

Though there’s nothing more gorgeous and boundless than bringing the infernal Abel Ferrara to the screen. And this is the kind of charisma that doesn’t mess around: there were moments when I was genuinely worried for Chalamet and Odessa Ezaion, so completely did Abel embody the character—whether it was Abel Megwich or your average New York pimp. Gwyneth Paltrow is still a mystery to me, but in “Marty Supreme” she is magnificent, a true Old Hollywood diva, condescending to the shortcomings of the younger generation. The moment when she stands with her back to the audience and suddenly beams at the sound of the ovation—it goes straight to the heart. But to be honest, there’s not a single weak link in “Marty Supreme.” All the actors gave it their all.

So, to wrap up my review, I want to focus on one very controversial moment that only seems comical at first glance: when Marty Mauser gets down on his knees to beg for forgiveness from Milton Rockwell, a die-hard capitalist for whom the table tennis championship is nothing more than a long-term investment. Rockwell wants to publicly spank the irrepressible Marty, and for many viewers, this is a chance to see Timothy Chalamet’s naked charms on the big screen, but there is a certain dark bitterness to this risqué scene. Perhaps because the room contains only influential men and the dream of millions of girls (and not only them)—a young sex symbol—it’s hard to resist drawing parallels with the present day and scandalous Hollywood parties. But it seems to me that Josh Safdie chose the early 1950s for a reason, and since we know that the film is merely a loose biography of Marty Reisman—and even a loose sports film, since it was important to Josh Safdie to capture this vast historical period (presumably, the Cold War period), so that… Here I recall that in 1951, James Jones wrote the novel *From Here to Eternity* about the war between America and Japan during World War II, and I particularly remember the admiration expressed by a character in the book—an American officer—for the methods of the Germans and the Japanese: “To preserve organized society and civilization in the form we recognize, not only the consolidation of power is necessary, but also complete, unconditional control over it.” I may be mistaken, but in the capitalist Milton Rockwell, Josh Safdie—just as Brady Corbet did in last year’s Harrison Van Buren—sees a successor to those who lost during World War II and a direct heir to their legacy. He portrays this with great subtlety and irony, without heavy-handed emotional grandstanding, which is why, for me personally, *Marty Supreme* is the best film of Chalamet’s career, the best in Josh Safdie’s filmography, and the best film of the year—for which I owe them all a huge thank you.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (69.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10+
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1
#English: Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos 5.1
#English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary with director Josh Safdie)

Info Subtitles