Director: Josh Safdie
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Tyler the Creator, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher
Screenplay: Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
149 mins. Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, some violent content/bloody images and nudity.

Folks, we’ve officially entered our Scumbag Chalamet Era, and I’m here for it.

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet, Interstellar) has a dream: to be the world’s greatest table tennis champion. This is a dream that garners him no respect from those around him, but that doesn’t matter. He’s willing to prove his greatness, and he doesn’t need help from anyone to accomplish this quest, just so long as they don’t mind him stepping over everyone he knows in order to achieve it. Between his chronically un-sick mother Rebecca (Fran Drescher, This is Spinal Tap), his close friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion, Until Dawn) who just may be carrying his child, and a rich businessman who might be able to help Marty arrive at success, this young man has a lot on his plate, if only he can stop making promises he can’t keep.

Josh Safdie’s films have always been terrific characters pieces for disreputable deviants, and yet, he’s able to make them endlessly watchable and exciting. This is partly the expert choice of casting likable lead performers as these losers (Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler in previous films and Timothée Chalamet here). These are the types of people who have all the options laid out and consistently choose the wrong ones. Chalamet’s Marty is the furthering of this idea, and Chalamet imbues him with such a pathetic likability, a persistence in his eventual worth, one who sees every embarrassment and slight as just a roadblock on the goal he sees himself eventually accomplishment. Marty is frequently stating that he’s doing it all on his own, “purely on the basis of my own talent,” while systematically stepping on everyone in his way.

Safdie is also great at finding unique and unlikely gold in his supporting players. Would I have guesses that Tyler the Creator (Jackass Forever) and Kevin O’Leary would make such compelling performers? Did I expect Penn Gillette to be so electrifying and dangerous as a farmer who Marty runs afoul of in his hair-brained quest to get to the championships? How does Abel Ferrara (Mr. 45) fit into this? I don’t know how it all works, but it all does.

Telling a great story often winds down to the mixture of expected and surprising story beats, but Marty Supreme leans more toward the surprising, mining as much anxiety as possible from the situation. We know the broad strokes of Marty’s journey, but he’s always trying every angle to get to his goal. He puts people in danger on a regular basis, and he makes promises that he’s unable to keep, assuming they won’t come back to bite him, which they always do. He’s never willing to give an inch in his conversations, but he’s always taking credit for the good choices he’s made (usually following his disdain for that choice in the previous scene). Marty is a complex character with far more flaws than he lets on.

Marty Supreme has a few stylistic flourishes that I love, and I honestly wish that Safdie pushed for more of that in his films. There are always a few moments like the opening sequence which transitions between a sexual encounter and a table tennis match, but I love that peculiar sense of visual storytelling that the Safdie brothers both bring to the table, and I wish the movie had more of that. They, along with the anachronistic musical choices, help to add a distinct mood and style to the film that is quintessentially Safdie.

Marty Supreme is so weird and exhilarating, rising far above the rather depressing and pathetic lead character thanks to an all-time best performance from Timothée Chalamet as the ultimate scumbag. This wild character journey highlights Josh Safdie’s sensibilities and further growth as a director. I don’t love the final moments of the movie, but the entire journey leading to them is so compelling and loser-forward that I couldn’t help but be engrossed. I hope Josh Safdie continues to push the peculiar elements of his storytelling forward, and I would love to see Chalamet team up with Pattinson, Sandler and The Rock for a Safdie brother reunion of scuzzy perfection.

4.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe