“Marty Supreme”, shown for the first time in New York and now in a special event at the Turin Film Festival, could be the right time for Timothée Chalamet and that Oscar he has already come close to in the past. Josh Safdie “challenges” his brother Benny Safdie, his “The Smashing Machine” with The Rock thanks to another story that tells us about obsession, sport, victory, redemption and fall: that of Marty Reisman. It arrives in theaters by I Wonder Pictures on January 22nd and trust me, it will surprise you.

“Marty Supreme” – The plot

“Marty Supreme” transports us to the Big Apple of the early 1950s, when many sports were experiencing a strong expansion in popularity. And among these, few like ping pong, which has in Marty Mauser, young and talented, a face that could make that sport become the new fashion in America.

Raised in one of the worst neighborhoods of the city, among swindlers, brawlers, street kids, Marty works in the shoe shop of Christopher Galanis (John Catsimatidis), who dreams of having him as manager of the shop, to put up the money to participate in those tournaments, which should crown him the new face of stars and stripes sport.

Shrewd, narcissistic, selfish at the highest levels, a sort of alley cat, he is capable of using everything and everyone, of going to every possible extreme to chase his dream. The young Marion (Odessa A’zion) who loves him madly, the rich and decadent former Hollywood diva Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), her husband, the greedy Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) and many others will understand this very well over time.

But when in England he finds a Japanese champion armed with a new racket on his way, his dream seems to fade away. It will be the beginning of a grotesque, miserable, dazed and unpredictable Odyssey, which will lead that boy to have to confront the truth about his nature, his defects and his inability to mature. All this amidst blackmail, theft, pathetic escapes, in an America where no one has pity for anyone and second chances are always a mirage.

“Marty Supreme” is loosely based on the life of Marty Reisman, but the screenplay by Ronald Bronstein and director Josh Safdie then takes a very different turn, allowing Timothée Chalamet to go full throttle like never before and give us his greatest career performance. All this while he talks to us about the American dream as a lie, while combining classicism and modernity, a dreamlike odyssey with realism, making unpredictability the very matrix of an excessive film, but certainly coherent from the first to the last minute and with a crazy protagonist.

A boy’s mad dash for life without limits

“Marty Supreme” is without a doubt John Safdie’s most ambitious film, the one in which the young American filmmaker, one of the symbols of a new generation of indie directors, clearly breaks away from this universe. He decides to connect instead to the grotesque and bewitching cinema of Martin Scorsese, but there is also room for the Nouvelle Vague, for Italian Neorealism and for John Ford.

However, its continuous movement ultimately also leads it to incorporate the narrative of John Steinbeck, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and James Ellroy. “Marty Supreme” is a car launched at full speed, which continuously downshifts, often even risks ending up off-road, and suffers from a certain abundance of playing time, let’s even say that 25 minutes less could have been done. Maybe Safdie loves his creation a little too much, but even so, it’s a film that hits you, gets into your gut, armed with a bittersweet black humor, which often makes it a very successful dramedy. Of course, Safdie is bulimic, he doesn’t filter, he gets lost halfway, but then he straightens the rudder.

Here there is no mercy for anyone, no one is truly innocent, but no one is also fully guilty. Abel Ferrara is another author called into question, and it is no coincidence that he is involved in an absolutely valuable cameo, as we follow this boy to whom Timothée Chalamet gives a simply gigantic arrogance, a lack of realism, a hunger (in every sense).

There is also room for the sporting epic, in that ping pong which would soon also become a diplomatic weapon during the Cold War. Here, however, it is a sport that was slowly beginning to emerge, it is the obsession of this boy with a black belt in the art of getting by, a metropolitan cicada who wanders impudently even where he shouldn’t. Moving, funny, tragic, “Marty Supreme” is the negation of the classic American dream and “Rocky” heroism.

This film can aim for something important at the next Oscars, Chalamet can do it with a stratospheric performance. Certainly a film that deserves your consideration, a very powerful cinematic experience.

Rating: 8