‘Marty Supreme’ Review: A Safdie and A Chalamet Repurpose ‘Uncut Gems’ to Fit the Table Tennis World

“That doesn’t even enter my consciousness.”

From the opening moments of director Josh Safdie's "Marty Supreme," with a jittery, sweat-soaked intensity and an anachronistic 1980s synth-pop score, the film announces itself as another entry in the Safdie canon. Featuring dynamic performances from its eventual leads, it falls into the "Uncut Gems" comparison of a propulsive man who mistakes unearned confidence for destiny. Like "Uncut Gems," the film is built around a protagonist who cannot stop hustling without risking death. And yet, even as "Marty Supreme" often feels like a repurposed version of that earlier Safdie vehicle, it works because the director finds a new emotional anchor in its supporting cast.

Set in the early 1950s, "Marty Supreme" follows Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a New York City shoe-store clerk who is convinced he is the greatest table tennis player alive. Ping-pong, at this point, is barely considered a sport, more novelty than profession, but Marty's belief in his own inevitability is unshakable. He hustles customers at his uncle's shop, schemes for quick cash, and sleeps with Rachel, a longtime friend and neighbor who happens to be married to the brutish Ira (Emory Cohen).

Marty's life is defined by forward momentum. He is always talking, always plotting, always angling for a bigger room, a better deal, and a larger audience. When he scrapes together enough money to compete in an international tournament, Marty launches himself into the wider world with reckless bravado, upgrading hotel rooms he can't afford and daring organizers to stop him.

It's during this ascent that Marty encounters Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow), a semi-retired movie star traveling with her wealthy husband, Milton (Kevin O'Leary). Marty is intoxicated by Kay's faded glamour and quickly cons his way into her life and bed, while simultaneously pitching himself to Milton as an investment opportunity.

The pattern is familiar: lies pile atop lies, ambition metastasizes into entitlement, and Marty's sense of invincibility grows louder just as the ground beneath him begins to crack. When he loses a major match overseas and becomes a public joke, he returns to New York broke, humiliated, and desperate to restore his self-image. Then comes the gut punch: Rachel is pregnant, and the stakes Marty has spent the entire film dodging suddenly become unavoidable.

Chalamet is undeniably electric as Marty, a character (very) loosely based on real-life player Marty Reisman. He plays Marty with intensity and a sense of irritation with everything around him. He's impossible to ignore as Marty is fascinating and exhausting in equal measure.

Like Howard Ratner before him, Marty is a character you may not root for, but you can't stop watching.

This is where comparisons to "Uncut Gems" become unavoidable, and, at times, limiting. Safdie again deploys relentless pacing, abrasive sound design, and claustrophobic compositions to simulate a mind in constant overdrive. The structure, too, is familiar as a string of escalating gambits, each designed to solve the problem created by the previous one, all barreling toward an inevitable reckoning.

What ultimately distinguishes the film, however, is Odessa A'zion. As Rachel, she could easily have been reduced to the Julia Fox "Uncut Gems" role as the girl on the side, possibly ending up as the collateral damage of the main male character's ambition. Instead, A'zion gives the film its most grounded and loyal performance opposite Chalamet's frenetic energy. Gwyneth Paltrow is also quite effective, avoiding caricature as Kay by locating the vulnerability beneath her composure as a woman still chasing the feeling of being famous.

"Marty Supreme" may feel like "Uncut Gems" refracted through a mid-century prism, but its success lies in the small recalibrations. It's a film about a man burdened by how great he thinks he's supposed to be, and about the people forced to live in the wake of that belief. Thanks in large part to A'zion's performance, the movie doesn't just vibrate with anxiety...it resonates.