Marty Supreme, an American film released on Christmas day 2025 was a highly anticipated film – from its superior marketing campaigns to its winning the Critics’ Choice best actor of 2025 and more recently, winner of Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Timothée Chalamet. He also posted an unnamed, hilariously awkward, 20 minute zoom call in which he talks to the marketing campaign team about his excitement for the film. In addition to this fantastic marketing video, Chalamet was also featured in a music video with masked rapper EsDeeKid, who he is suspected to be. He wrote a rap verse in the song “4Raws” in which he repeats “Marty Supreme” to promote his movie further. If this wasn’t already enough to convince you of this movie’s importance, it is also American rapper and singer Tyler the Creator’s film debut. Tyler found time while recording his own music album to act in this movie which I think is incredibly dedicated.
The film is about a man named Marty Mauser who is determined to not only play in, but win the British open for table tennis or more generally known as ping-pong. He wants the sport to gain more recognition within his own home country and to be taken more seriously. Alongside this dream is a pitch about standardizing orange ping-pong balls rather than the regular white ones because as Marty mentions it too easily blends in with the white shirts worn by players. It takes place during the 1950s in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Throughout the film Marty Mauser proves himself to be a great player. But this accomplishment is blurred by Marty’s disregard for everyone there for him. Being a comedy-drama I expected this movie to be a lot less of a cautionary tale than it was and considering its major anticipation many, including myself, have become fearful of the people who watch Marty Supreme without taking away its core message and may even feel inspired by Marty Mauser.
On Letterboxd the movie’s ratings have skyrocketed since it came to theaters. Currently, there are around 400,000 reviews with an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars. After reading through many of the more critical reviews people who dislike the movie note things about how it promotes egotistical white men’s perspectives and finding the main character aggressively unlikable. Are they rightful to think this? Maybe they are. However to me it seems more like they have missed the message of the movie in its entirety or just left the theater early. In the en (spoiler alert, Marty doesn’t seem to have accomplished anything proving just how inessential it is to make all the selfish decisions he made when trying to reach for success. In fact, Marty is slapped in the face with reality that he truly lost sight of all things and people that are supportive towards him. The final shot is of Marty holding his newborn baby he had neglected to pay any mind to previously. The mother is Rachel Mizler, played by Odessa A’zion, Marty’s childhood friend who is also having an affair.
Overall the movie seems to be doing pretty well despite its critiques and has awarded Timothée Chalamet some hefty awards.
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