Earlier this year, Timothée Chalamet got serious at the Screen Actors Guild awards. Accepting his statue for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the youngest winner ever, Chalamet said, "I'm really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats." The candor was refreshing for a young actor in the "post-movie-star" era, and comes as no surprise after his legendary run in movies like the Dune series and a careful avoidance of franchise tentpoles and superhero roles. 

That intensity and aspiration also make the 30-year-old actor a perfect fit for the title character in Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme, a ping-pong player written specifically for Chalamet and inspired by real-life champion Marty Reisman. Safdie is fresh off a professional split with his brother Benny, and Marty Supreme is his solo directorial debut after their phenomenal duo outings Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019). Like those two movies, Marty Supreme is a white-knuckled story of a man who wants to be someone, do something, and survive in New York City — and also like them, it succeeds in spades. 

We meet Marty (Chalamet) as a fast-talking shoe salesman in 1952 New York, who's always sneaking away from his job to hook up with married Rachel (Odessa A'zion), spin business hustles with friend Dion (Luke Manley), and raise money to pursue his true passion: becoming the best ping-pong player in the world. In London for the table tennis British Open, his audacious energy rattles and excites those around him, from antagonizing the head of the International Table Tennis Association (Pico Iyer) to seducing retired actress Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow) and ingratiating himself to her husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary). But his confidence isn't misplaced; he plows through the Open competition, including former champion Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig), before a crushing loss to Japanese competitor Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi). Marty reflexively scapegoats Endo's racket and demands a rematch, but his excuses get him nowhere.

Without the world title, and with new enemies like the ITTA director and Rockwell, Marty slinks back to relative anonymity. His need to self-fundraise a trip to Japan for the World Championships forces him into a ratcheting and oftentimes embarrassing grind for cash. He plays a halftime circus act with Kletzki for the Harlem Globetrotters; steals a necklace from Kay; runs a con game with taxi driver friend (Tyler Okonma); tries to ransom the lost dog of an elderly stranger (Abel Ferrara); and even considers swallowing the shame of throwing a big exhibition game on purpose. At every turn, seedy New Yorkers get in his way, systems of power fence him in, family and friends turn into hangers-on or detractors — and yet Marty himself is always his own worst enemy.

In following its deeply unsavory titular character, Marty Supreme broaches tough questions about how men find purpose and chase their concept of "greatness." On one hand, Marty is the victim of circumstance; growing up poor and Jewish in slummy Manhattan conditions, he's constantly being lied to and taken advantage of by obsessive lovers, spiteful relatives, and institutional powers. When an uncle refuses to pay him $700 of back wages he's owed (equivalent to $8,600 today!), he has scant recourse; when a ping pong regulator bars him from competition, he has even less. Our sympathies are with him in these moments; we want to root for an underdog. But on the other hand, Marty's response to this unfairness is to persistently cheat his friends and spite his loved ones. In the name of being an "athlete" and "champion," he speedruns wronging as many people as possible, with callous words and deeds directed especially at his mother, his baby mama, his lover, and every other woman in his life. While we sense (and hope for) an opportunity for growth — Marty's only 23, compared to the equally problematic Howard in Uncut Gems who's squarely set in his ways in middle age — any redemptive arc needs to overcome a bucketload of misdeeds.

How do men pick their objective of striving, though, and can one be truly great leaving so many bodies in his wake? To better answer these questions, Marty's singular obsession on ping pong could have been fleshed out more, especially since so little of the film involves him actually playing the game; we see him crushing British Open play-in competitors and chumps at local tables, but so much of his energy is dedicated to fundraising and hustling we don't get much of a portrait of his real relationship to the sport. But his dedication to making it to the championships, and being top of the world, still speaks volumes. When final scenes suggest his personal passion may move on from ping pong, we're left questioning how much he could grow up — and worrying about those who are counting on him.

Along the way, Marty's odyssey is peppered with diverse dozens of professional, semi-professional, and amateur actors who together drive the story forward and characterize our flawed protagonist. The casting (led by Jennifer Venditti, whose experience with nontraditional hires includes American Honey and Uncut Gems) is particularly rewarding when on-screen personas mirror real life. For instance, Paltrow is of course a professional actress, but has been long preoccupied with Goop riches, which resonates in her role as Kay, a performer out of the limelight yet surrounded by corporate wealth. Röhrig, a Hungarian poet-turned-actor whose part in Son of Saul (2015) secured the film's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, draws on his complex European Jewish identity to deliver one of the most memorable scenes of Marty Supreme and demonstrate real sacrifice to his American counterpart. O'Leary, who like all reality stars has been effectively "acting" as a caricatured version of himself for decades on Shark Tank, has the same sharp, cartoonish cruelty as a mid-century industrialist toying with Marty's career. Okonma (better known by his rap moniker Tyler, The Creator) brings hip-hop patter and wiliness to Marty's fellow scammer; Kawaguchi is a real-life deaf table tennis champion; Ferrara delivers the same menace in his day job as a movie director (King of New York, The Funeral), as in this violent character turn; and even NBA all-star Tracy McGrady pops up as a Harlem Globetrotter. Layer all these incredible performances on top of Chalamet's career-best scumminess as Marty and it's undeniable Safdie is able to pull out the best from his actors.

But it's not just the characters that make Marty Supreme's world so incredibly realistic for a story invented mostly from wholecloth. Production design by Jack Fisk imbues every scene with rich, lived-in detail, from grimy tenement blocks and hoity-toity upper Manhattan parties to suburban bowling alleys and Japanese exposition venues. Set decoration by Adam Willis stuffs rooms and airplanes and city streets with the tchotchkes and refuse of real life, and every time Marty picks up a tennis shoe, dollar bill, ping-pong ball, or piece of jewelry it feels worn and true. (It's no surprise that Fisk and Willis last collaborated on Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023, that year's most physically immersive film.) A high-energy soundtrack adds sonic propulsion to the visuals, with Safdie collaborator Daniel Lopatin (of Oneohtrix Point Never fame) buzzing through a synthy score, and familiar 80s British pop bangers from Peter Gabriel and Tears for Fears adding danceable anachronism.

In Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie world-builds 1950s New York and its residents in all their small quirks and big imperfections. Although it gets pretty stressful, it's a strong vehicle to explore what it takes to achieve "greatness" — especially thanks to the parallels between Chalamet and Marty as hard workers with immense talent, twinges of annoyingness, and audacious dreams.