Marty Supreme
Director: Josh Safdie
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion
Genre: Pinged Pong
Of all of this year’s Academy Award-nominated films I’ve watched (admittedly only five out of ten so far) Marty Supreme is the most realistic and most interesting (F1 was the worst!). That doesn’t mean it’s the best though, and it won’t win the Academy Award.
And I should know. This is my 200th film review for the South Sydney Herald, and even in my first review in 2008 I felt Daniel Day-Lewis deserved his Best Actor award for his performance in There Will Be Blood (2007). Last year I got no predictions right but that’s because Anora (2024) wasn’t released here until after the awards.
This year I’m OK with Sinners (2025) getting so many nominations. I rated the first half of the film awesome and the second half bizarre and absurd, but legitimate historical reasons justified and explained it.
Alas, One Battle After Another will probably win the Best Picture award because of its supposed anti-Trumpism. That’s not criticism of the really good film but is disappointment of the politically focused, not film focused, voters. At least Trump’s response will be fun to watch!
In any case, watch Marty Supreme. It’s not the best of the 200 films I’ve reviewed but is the most sporty. Its focus on a great American table tennis player in the 1950s also has a vague historical background. Timothée Chalamet, who played Marty, practised his table tennis for years in the build-up to the film, so his commitment and passion to table tennis and the film are genuine. It’s his on-screen over-commitment that he ultimately pays the price of (Carlos Alcaraz beware!).
Rating: Four and a half smashes
