Henry O'Brien
When Timothée Chalamet walked up to the stage to receive the trophy for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards for his role as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, he was about to kick off the press tour for his next movie, Marty Supreme.
Chalamet ended the memorable speech by talking about his desire to be “one of the greats” and that he was “in pursuit of greatness.”
With Marty Supreme, which details a snippet of the life of the driven table tennis star Marty Mauser, now out in theaters, it’s clear in retrospect that that speech was part of one long brand awareness campaign for his next film. Chalamet, in the months and days leading up to the Christmas release of Marty Supreme, has gone full-court press in getting people to see a Josh Safdie film that shows how hard Timothée Chalamet works.
The press tour and build-up for Safdie’s newest movie have been well-documented and generated thinkpieces on the too-muchness of modern-day movie marketing and its efficacy. However, especially in the case of Marty Supreme, which features the young, monocultural moviestar and one of the biggest budgets A24 has ever given out for a film of theirs, it’s all in service of a hustle.
For Chalamet and Safdie, it’s all about convincing audiences to see this movie and demonstrating to film financiers that people will watch a Rocky-esque movie like theirs. But on a fundamental level, the actor and director are just merely reflecting the ideas of the film itself: Marty Supreme is one long hustle. Mauser’s journey, based on real-life table tennis legend Marty Reisman, sells you on the idea of the movie star and the American Dream. It’s rewarding, heartwarming and hollow all at once. You’re not supposed to know how to feel, except maybe the one Chalamet’s character feels at the end where he defeated his Japanese rival, Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), in a match and came back home to the States to see his newborn child, breaking down in tears.
Even as the movie takes place in the 1950s and features needle drops primarily from the 1980s, Marty Supreme primarily focuses on American sensibilities and anxieties that can be found in the 2020s. Marty’s philosophy about how he lives his life is with a relentless attitude that feels all too reminiscent of Michael Jordan (as shown in The Last Dance), but more specifically, the rise-and-grind, hustle culture that has appeared over the last 15 years.
“The hustle-culture narrative promotes the idea that there’s always more to strive for: more money to make, a bigger title or promotion to secure and a higher ceiling to smash,” Megan Carnegie wrote on hustle culture in 2023 for the BBC. Although not all entrepreneurs embrace these tropes, some experts say some people have still felt the pressure from the decades-long trickle-down effect of total immersion in work, often to the detriment of other facets of their lives. They point out this mindset stems largely from tech start-ups in Silicon Valley, and is perpetuated on social media.”
Although Carnegie’s article focused on how attitudes toward hustle culture have changed, the ideas still exist and remain strong. While the kind of hustle or success have changed since the days of “rise and grind,” there are still ridiculous life advice folks such as this entrepreneur who claims to have manipulated time. Building a brand is equally as important as a girl who described the act of spitting on a penis in a man-on-the-street video can go from internet joke to famous podcast to crypto scammer all within a few months.
From the word go, we know Chalamet’s Mauser is a hustler, and like any good hustler, he’s way too overconfident, as Film Obsessive’s Don Shanahan identifies in his review of the movie: “Mary Mauser is overconfidence personified. He sees himself to be uniquely positioned to become America’s first superstar of the sport, with the potential to fill stadiums, and pitches his greatness to anyone who will listen and anyone who can elevate his status,” Shanahan writes.
Like the city he inhabits, he’s always on the move. Yet, he remains laser-focused on the task that is in front of him. Whether it be sneaking off to have sex with Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion) or convincing pen magnate Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) to let him play a sponsored exhibition match against Endo in Japan toward the end of the movie, Mauser never loses focus or the belief in himself that what he is doing is right and will lead to his ultimate goal.
If this sounds anything like a certain sports gambler from Josh Safdie’s previous film, Uncut Gems, you wouldn’t be mistaken. Even as both Safdie brothers released films in 2025, with brother Benny releasing the Dwayne Johnson sports drama The Smashing Machine in October, Marty Supreme has far more connective tissue to the Adam Sandler-led drama. This is in part due to Josh bringing back cinematographer Darius Khondji and co-writer Ronald Bronstein into the fold for his film.
Marty and Howard Ratner both share a relentless drive to their passion and their methods, even as they commit acts that would be more in line with being a scumbag. They are both New York Jews who cheat on their partners and they make promises they have no way of making up, typically to more disastrous and violent ends. And they both have some financial interest in sports.
But whereas Howard faces his untimely death after winning his big bet, Marty is able to have a happy ending, getting everything he wants in the end. This, in turn, makes Marty Supreme oddly feel thematically richer and thornier. Even as he achieves some of his goals (and I do mean some, because how much success does he really attain?), he has to commit scams, gets people killed and debases himself by letting Rockwell spank him with a paddle.
And yet, Chalamet has the unique ability to make this drive and ruthless attitude toward getting his next score or winning his next match seem wholly likable.
“In the hands of a lesser actor, Marty’s difficult personality might make him tough to root for,” The Atlantic’s David Sims wrote in his review. “But he so perfectly matches Chalamet’s spirited, try-hard charisma—the same presence that made him a comfortable fit playing such varied roles as the fanciful Willy Wonka, a renegade young Bob Dylan, and Dune’s super-powered mystic Paul Atreides. Even as Marty’s quest veers off course, Chalamet imbues the character with an irresistible passion.”
In Biblical terms, Chalamet represents the serpent from the story of Adam and Eve: he makes something deeply evil seem very tempting. And indeed, every other character indulges in Marty Mauser because he represents a chance to further their respective hustle.
For Rockwell, Marty’s match with Endo in Japan helps open up his pen empire to the country, as the travel ban on the country as a result of World War II has been lifted. For Rockwell’s wife, silent film star Kay Stone (perfectly cast for Gwyneth Paltrow, who has largely been absent from movies minus the MCU for the past decade), Marty represents a more youthful side of her and the idea that she’s still a star to be lusted after. For Rachel, Marty gives her a chance to simultaneously get out of her shitty marriage and help pay the bills for it.
Everyone is playing a hustle. And even in Mauser’s climactic final match, where Rockwell delivers a chilling monologue about how he “was born in 1601” and is “a vampire,” leading to only a shrug from the ping pong star who plays Endo straight up anyways, this is all still in service of displaying how great and how committed Marty is.
And, from an audience perspective, the final sequence takes on a range of conflicting emotions. The Rockwell speech comes out of nowhere and is genuinely bone-chilling, especially coming from Mr. Wonderful himself. But also when Mauser is locked in on Endo and pulls off the pyrrhic victory, I feel a true sense of wonder and awe. Watching the movie via a screener, I stood up and started clapping for Mauser. Was I cheering for Mauser or Chalamet? I’m still not sure. Maybe I got hustled after all.
At the end of the day, everyone’s hustle in Marty Supreme is based on economic anxieties and looking to make more money than they currently have. And no matter what, the hustle doesn’t care for the people around it, and the film’s moments of pure insanity are rooted in a disinterest in listening to others or truly caring for others. The hustle is a Marty-sized steamroll, and those who are successful at it will get after what they want. As the pretense of niceties and doing the “right thing” in a capitalist system is eroding, Safdie’s portrait of the 1950s feels all too connected to today.
If movies are meant to be dreams or reflections of a moment in time, then Marty Supreme is quite possibly the perfect mirror for the general mood of American capitalism. According to a September 2025 Gallup poll, there has been a 6% drop in favorability toward capitalism among Americans. Safdie and Chalamet, via his pitbull-like determination, don’t outwardly critique the structures of capitalism, but instead reflect the successful, if hollow, results and equally all the dark acts that have to be done to get there.
By the end of the movie, Marty Mauser and Timothée Chalamet finished the hustle that could only have happened in America.
