Congratulations should be in order for Timothée Chalamet for finding a sports movie that he can believably headline. It’s seemingly a rite of passage for any leading star in Hollywood, spanning all the way from Harold Lloyd in The Freshman to Sydney Sweeney in Christy. With his toothpick frame and pale complexion, it should have been impossible to slot Chalamet to the forefront of a sport. Hell, I’m not even sure he could have passed for golf, at least not in the current post-Tiger Woods/sports medicine era.

But here we are, and he’s found his niche in table tennis (also known as ping-pong), a sport whose largest cinematic footprint is through Dan Fogler competing in a Mortal Kombat-esque tournament staged by Christopher Walken in the gross-out parody Balls of Fury. Chalamet has been telling the press he’s prepared for this role for over six years, bringing a table tennis table to the deserts of Jordan while shooting the Dune movies, and the streets of New Jersey while conjuring the spirit of Bob Dylan for A Complete Unknown. It’s a similar awards-bait storyline to that of Bradley Cooper’s tenacity to become a conductor in Maestro, or Austin Butler mastering the mannerisms of The King of Rock and Roll in Elvis. The dedication to the craft behind the scenes has become as compelling as what is actually projected onto the screen.

Luckily, Chalamet’s money is where his mouth is. The kineticism and composure he displays during those scenes of athleticism are thrilling to watch, with director Josh Safdie serving (pun intended) him well. The camera darts back and forth like a pair of eyes from the spectators, the players flailing around the room as they try to smack a little white ball across a glorified dining room table. Their physical skills may be the biggest reason why we watch, but there’s also the thrill of witnessing a person displaying their rawest selves to the world, all for our entertainment. Years of hard work have led to this moment, with every piece of sweat being a declaration of determination, and every point marking an inch closer to glory.

Loosely inspired by the life of Marty Reisman, Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is one of the best table tennis players in the world circa 1952. It’s a fact he’ll let everyone know, his mouth moving as fast as his backhand volleys. The game of table tennis had little respect in the United States at this time, an unsurprising fact considering the longstanding dominance of baseball, and the continued rise in popularity of football and basketball. But it fills stadiums overseas, and Marty is in the unique position to become the face of the game. He’s got that X Factor, a player you love to hate, and hate to love. He is to table tennis what John McEnroe was to tennis. In a post-WWII landscape entrenched in American exceptionalism, he was more than happy to wave his superiority in the face of his competitors.

There are only two sequences of the game being played throughout the 150-minute film, each serving as a bookend. It’s fitting, as while being a great player is what precedes Marty’s name in the papers, it’s probably only the fifth most potent quality of him as a person. When we’re introduced, he’s a shoe salesman at his uncle’s store. He thinks it’s beneath him, something for people who have no purpose in the rest of their lives. And yet, he seems right at home, a master storyteller who was born to twist his words to get him whatever he needs at any moment. He’s like Artificial Intelligence: a speculative asset claiming to be full of untapped potential. And because he relentlessly hypes himself up, people have no other choice but to buy in. Everyone except Marty knows that his bubble will pop, so the trick is to get in and get out before that happens.

Safdie has become a master of depicting addiction, the agony and ecstasy of gambling everything for the chance to win anything. This is the kind of movie that is as exhausting as it is exhilarating. You let out a huge sigh of relief once the credits begin, as you’re now free of the vice grip… although Safdie doesn’t even let that be a moment of respite with a certain audio choice. Between Connie Nikas in Good Time and Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems, this is familiar territory for Safdie at this point. But can you ever fault Martin Scorsese for making another gangster film, or Wes Anderson for making another twee comedy? When you’re the best at something, you have an obligation to deliver it.

The chaos is controlled at every turn, the tracks of this rollercoaster pushing the cart at the right speeds at the right time. In one moment, Marty is riding high at The Ritz London, ordering copious amounts of room service and swooning after the once-famous movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow). The next moment, he’s plunging down the fire escape of his mother’s dingy New York apartment, hiding in a dumpster to avoid the cops chasing him for stealing from the safe in the shoe store.

It reminded me a lot of Damien Chazelle’s 2022 film Babylon, the story of Hollywood’s tumultuous transition from silent films to talkies. Engulfed in all the orgastic excess was a story filled with dreamers trying to meddle with their reality. Was all this indulgence going to make a difference in the present, and would anyone in the future even know of their existence? Babylon only had one scene where Tobey Maguire exposes the depths of hell that our world keeps hidden. Marty Supreme has about five scenes with that same energy, your eyes widening each time as the stakes get higher and the morals get lower.

Composer Daniel Lopatin delivers an electric, Tangerine Dream-esque score, propulsively pushing the characters and the audience to the next scene. Darius Khondji’s 35mm cinematography and Jack Fisk’s sets are reminiscent of The Godfather Part II, a comparison I don’t make lightly. Warm tones are matched with striking darkness, the screen flickering from the spinning celluloid. New York City is bustling, with fruit and shoe shine stands around every corner.

On those streets are some eclectic characters, each of them begging you to ask casting director Jennifer Venditti and Safdie how they found them. Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary comes from reality television, Tyler the Creator comes from the rap stage, George Gervin comes from the basketball court, and Abel Ferrara comes from the director’s chair of his own film sets. There’s also Luke Manley as the portly Deon, Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman as Uncle Murray, and Ted Williams as Ted. The two women in Marty’s life are both actors: Kay on the stage and Rachel (Odessa A'zion) in the streets. Everyone is faking it until they make it, although it doesn’t seem like they’ll ever realize when it’s time to stop.

The one thing I wanted from Marty Supreme was for it to never end. The two and a half hours both do and don’t fly by. You feel every minute of it, yet I was never thinking about when this would be over. It’s what I love about long movies, as there’s a certain amount of belief and ambition a filmmaker must have in themselves to warrant trapping an audience for that long. An even more extended runtime would probably put people in the hospital from stress/anxiety. Still, it would have been well worth it for those who survived.