All I knew about Marty Supreme going in was that Timothée Chalamet was lauded for his performance here and that it’s about ping pong. I quickly realized that one, it’s isn’t a sports movie at all and two, the main character is one of the most obnoxious pieces of shit I’ve ever seen on film. Yet he also reminded me of Adam Sandler’s character Uncut Gems. ‘Lo and behold it was made by the same director Josh Safdie who I am now convinced must be some kind of moral nihilist. Yes, this is a highly entertaining film and Chalamet is phenomenal in it. But the message it’s sending is so infuriating it made me want to punch out the screen.

In 1952, Marty Mauser works as a shoe salesman for his uncle Murray while aiming to become rich and famous by becoming the world table tennis champion. When his uncle doesn’t pay him, he steals the $700 he needs from the shop to fund his trip to London to play in the British Open. There he is unsatisfied with the quality of the housing assigned to the players and checks himself into the Ritz Hotel. He talks himself into the bed of aging movie star Kay Stone and meets her wealthy husband Milton Rockwell. In the championship, he beats the defending champion Bela Kletzki but loses to a new player from Japan Koto Endo. He is forced to join Kletzki in performing on an international tour as part of a novelty act for the Harlem Globetrotters. Back in the US, his childhood friend and affair partner Rachel tells him she is pregnant with his child. His uncle Murray tries to have him arrested for his prior theft and confiscates his earnings from his international tour. He is also fined $1,500 for fraudulently charging his stay at the Ritz and banned from the World Championship in Japan. Desperate to raise the money, he embarks on a wild series of schemes including hustling with his cab driver friend Wally, scamming others with Rachel and trying to get a advertising deal with Rockwell.

This is a ping pong movie only because it is loosely based on a real-life player Marty Reisman. It has no real interest in the sport as we barely see Marty practicing. He realizes that Endo is using a novel paddle with a rubberized foam layer but learning how to deal with it isn’t a plot point at all. Instead it’s all about Marty’s obnoxious personality. He’s supremely arrogant, is constantly hustling and promoting himself, and is ever ready to burn everyone else be they friends or family in order to achieve his goals. It’s a familiar character archetype from both of Safdie’s previous films. Arguably Marty is the worst of the lot as the others still have family members that they care for or lines that they won’t cross. Marty’s treatment of Rachel and his almost literal kick the dog moment convinces me that he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is poison to everyone that he meets and you spend the whole film wanting to see him get his comeuppance. The question is whether this is the director’s intention. Did Safdie mean for the audience to root for Marty in some bizarre celebration of his single-minded drive to achieve success.

One key clue is that Marty is far from being alone in his behavior. Rachel is the perfect partner for him as she is all-in for his schemes, so long as she isn’t on the receiving end of them of course. I love that Marty’s hustles mostly don’t work on anyone older or more worldly-wise than him. A number of them take advantage of him for their own purposes after calling him out for his naked opportunism. It’s almost as if it’s not his greed that offends them but his ineptness and failure to know his own place. I must conclude that Safdie does view the world in such morally nihilistic terms. He does intend for audiences to sympathize with Marty for being someone who pursues an impossible dream relentlessly to the end regardless of the cost. In his view, Marty is a hero because he refuses to accept the role and the place that his elders and society have assigned to him. I find this extremely repellent because he causes an absurd amount of harm to others in his single-minded quest. Multiple people are killed, he hurts the dog Moses several times, he burns his relationships with his friends and so on. It’s one thing if society doesn’t punish him for it. It’s another that the film itself rewards him for it and offers him redemption in the end.

I can’t deny that this is an engrossing watch from the beginning to the end. It’s technically competent and the performances are top tier. Chalamet surely is one the greatest young actors of his generation as he disappears into the role. I found the anachronistic musical choices confusing and wrong however, seemingly more of a statement on Safdie’s own background than what it adds to the film. Most of all, Marty Supreme is infuriating in what it has to say and I fear that I will have the same visceral dislike to every Safdie film from here on out.