Shabbily dressed, wearing thrift-store clothes a size or two too big, his mind contorted and highly-strung, Marty ducks and dodges as if trying to walk down both sides of the street at once, flustering most of those he meets by his high-octane, over-caffeinated approach to life. He rarely plans out a route or stays long in one place; he is profoundly talkative, maintaining his word count even across country borders and when his audience is comprised of non-English speakers. Wired and stimulated, Marty keeps crouching and bobbing, constantly on the move, wheeling and dealing on every corner. I think the idea is to play with the meaning of “ping-pong” which, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, can mean “a series of usually verbal exchanges between two parties” as well as the fast-moving racquet sport.
The most impressive feature about Marty Supreme (A24), a film about table tennis, showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, is the sheer number of sets: a shoe store and a pet store; a luxurious Parisian restaurant and a run-of-the-mill diner; a small outdoor arena in Tokyo and a tremendous amphitheatre in Wembley stadium; a five-star hotel and and a flophouse; a million-dollar Manhattan apartment and a small-roomed tenement; a Broadway theatre (both front- and backstage); a large rural house and a rubbish-strewn passageway; a ramshackle petrol forecourt and a breezy bowling alley; many bedrooms and just about as many bathrooms—and that’s just inside.
Marty is a brilliant table-tennis player, the number one in America, but he “doesn’t want to do trick shots for a half-time show while people go to the bathroom,” as he puts it. “That’s not my path.” Even though “you can watch me de-throne the number-one-ranked player in the world,” ping-pong evidently doesn’t pay. In order to continue with his wish to become “the first American to win the British Open,” and then continue to the next championship in Japan, he does get a gig with the Harlem Globetrotters, who “act like circus clowns.” Needs must.
The table-tennis scenes are all outstanding. Actor Timothée Chalamet, who plays Marty, plus the multitude of extras and other actors against whom he competes, have clearly worked hard, as have the designers of the sets and the camerawork needed to execute such exciting and completely believable sequences. The earliest such set-piece reminded me of the style in which the courts are set up for the snooker championships in Sheffield—three parallel tables, with an audience surrounding all three, rather than crowding in on each of the three tables separately. The umpires, who all wear suits, and who are all men—the film is set in the nineteen-fifties—sit behind tables lit by old-school, reading-room-library lights, and the commentary is pronounced with diction of the kind familiar from BBC Radio recordings from the Second World War. The table-tennis governing body is staying at the Ritz Hotel, and Marty feels that, as “your star player,” he should too—“I wanna stay where you’re staying.” He does—in a penthouse suit. There is an excellent scene soon after this in which Marty is giving an interview to the assembled print media. He sits jumpily on the side of his seat throughout, lies about his family, and yells “next question” as soon as things get uncomfortable. But it is this scene and the consequential fawning article in a British tabloid that sets him up with the movie-star wife of a pen-and-ink magnate, the kind of old, rich, corporate type from whom Marty needs to extract money. “I’ve never talked to an actual movie star before,” Marty says. “I’m something of a performer too.”
Married women seem to put thoughts of a certain nature into Marty’s mind—and they seem to consent to his advances for one reason or another. As well as the movie star, there is a much younger lady, an assistant in the pet shop. She is pregnant and has to explain to her violent husband that Marty is the father. She leaves her husband and confronts Marty with his responsibilities. But Marty disapproves of settling down and most certainly will not give up ping-pong; “My life is a product of all the choices I’ve had to make,” he says. “You’re responsible for all the shitty decisions you’ve made.” And then, the rub, “I will not settle down now,” he tells her. “Just go home, Rachel.”
Despite the undeniable effort involved in its production—and to scout for all those sets—“Marty Supreme” is overloaded and unfocused and never breathes; the whole hodgepodge teeters on the sum of its parts. Missing is any sense of the dedicated work that would be needed by any athlete to attain world-champion status; when Marty plays table-tennis matches, the filmmakers typically present these as a sort of hustle—rather than to learn, to hone, to train. Scenes which taught us in this way would be more appetising than, say, a tasteless scene showing Marty pulling down his trousers to be spanked by a ping-pong paddle as entertainment for the pen-and-ink guy’s loathsome corporate pals.
In October, I wrote one of my most joyful reviews, about “I Swear,” one of the Playhouse’s biggest hits of the autumn, which I depicted as “a long-form cinematic profile” of its subject, John Davidson, who is lovable, sympathetic and humble. Marty is opinionated, egomaniacal and a taker. He despises his honest life as a sales assistant in the shoe store; “I could sell shoes to an amputee,” he says. He believes success is inevitable “purely on the basis of my own talents.” “Failing,” he says, “that doesn’t even enter into my consciousness!”
Adam Poole
12th January 2026
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
