getting this out of the way immediately: if you liked this movie then genuinely close this tab because i'm full of hate and you probably won't feel fulfillment by seeing me be mean to it.

also, this review will contain spoilers!!!

yesterday my bf and i watched marty supreme and it really feels like a 2/10 script with 9/10 everything else. the directing, cinematography, audio, and acting is really firing on all cylinders and then the writing is just all over the place and has no idea what it's doing or trying to say. honestly it's going to be hard writing this review because so much shit happens and almost none of it actually matters to even the subsequent scene.

my last the beautiful world was really long so i've earned the right to shit on this movie.

synopsis

this is mostly just for context so i can talk about why none of this works afterwards so if you've watched the movie you can skip to the next section, though i will touch on a lot of issues with the script, so it might help contextualize why the movie sucks complete ass. i'm going to structure this synopsis in a non-linear way just so i can talk about each plotline because i think that's easier and also i think it better highlights the issues with the script.

the movie follows marty mauser, a table tennis player who is also not very well off and jewish, which is important to note because the movie takes place in the 50s and the movie is pretty unsubtle in criticising american entitlement.

quick rundown of the list of plotlines:

• marty steals money from his uncle
• marty participates in table tennis competitions
• marty's childhood friend rachel is pregnant and he is the father
  • i'm actually going to touch on this one later in the order because it ends up mattering to some other plotlines
• marty tries to make a business with his rich childhood friend dion selling orange table tennis balls
• marty seduces a former-actress (who is also rich) named kay
• marty tries to get kay's husband, rockwell, to invest in him
• marty stays at a hotel and the bathtub he's in falls through the floor and crushes a guy's arm and he makes a deal to take the guy's dog to the vet. no there isn't a shorter way to summarize this
• marty does some scams with his taxi driver friend wally

ok time to try and summarize these.

marty steals money from his uncle: marty needs to make it to the british open and his uncle apparently owes him money but doesn't want to give it to him, so he steals it from him by pretend-holding his uncle's employee at gunpoint and making him unlock the safe. when marty returns home from the british open, his uncle's cop friend arrests him and makes him apologise and promise to pay the money back, and then his uncle tells the cop to uncuff him, and marty runs away. this doesn't really get brought up again despite marty living in the same city.

marty participates in table tennis competitions: this is kind of the main plotline. marty competes in the british open and then loses to a japanese guy named endo and then he rages and is banned from the world championships in japan unless he pays a $1500 fine. he desperately tries to get money to go to japan, and then ends up taking a deal where he has to throw an exhibition match against endo in exchange for getting to go to japan. by the time he's in japan, though, he finds out that the bracket is already set and he can't just pay the fine and participate, so he pleads with the audience of the match to let them play a real match. the audience ends up cheering and wanting to see it too, so they do the real match, and then marty wins against endo.

marty tries to make a business with his rich childhood friend dion selling orange table tennis balls: marty thinks that the white balls are hard to see when the other person is wearing white so he wants orange balls to be standard and he ropes his rich friend dion into it. dion is rich because his dad is rich, not because he's actually a business guy or whatever. this is set up as if it's relevant and then it doesn't actually matter at all. much, MUCH later, marty imposes on dion and dion eventually gets mad and throws all the balls out of the window and it isn't brought up again.

marty seduces a former-actress (who is also rich) named kay: this is maybe the most pointless plotline that gets an insane amount of screen time. kay is unhappy in her marriage and periodically fools around with marty. her husband funds a stageplay that she stars in and marty tries to steal a necklace from her, but it's costume jewelry. he comes to the debut of her play, and they meet in central park after so she can give him a real and expensive necklace that her husband gave her so he can sell it to go to japan.

then they have sex in the park and then are caught by the police and they bribe the police with the necklace. he asks her to get him another necklace, but there's a party at her house so she asks him to wait outside. he waits for a while but then gets impatient and comes inside. she finds out her play bombed and she's bawling so he can't go see her and that's the end of this plotline.

marty tries to get kay's husband, rockwell, to invest in him: rockwell offers marty a deal to throw an exhibition match in japan against endo in exchange for money and whatever. marty says no because ego. then at the aforementioned party from the kay section, marty pleads with rockwell to let him do the deal, and rockwell says yes on the condition that rockwell gets to spank marty there and then, which he does. then at the exhibition match when marty does the "real match" stuff, rockwell says that he is absolutely not letting marty on his private jet back to the US, and then says the funniest thing in the movie which is that he is a vampire from the 1600s and that he knows that marty will never be happy. it was also the dumbest thing ever and felt like it was made with the primary purpose of getting turned into a tiktok.

marty ends up making it home by catching a ride with an army plane, and they don't show how that ended up happening, and it was also awful convenient it took him right to new york city, but whatever. also, the fact marty is having sex with rockwell's wife is genuinely not relevant to this storyline at all and rockwell never finds out.

marty stays at a hotel and the bathtub he's in falls through the floor and crushes a guy's arm and he makes a deal to take the guy's dog to the vet: all that happens, and the dude offers to give marty money in exchange for marty taking the dog to the vet. instead he just takes the dog in the car with him while he tries to make more money by doing bets. some dumb bullshit (Bullshit A) happens which i will elucidate in the next plotline, and the dog gets away, but marty still has the collar. later, some more bullshit (Bullshit B) happens related to this plotline, and i'll talk about that in the childhood friend rachel plotline. it's genuinely insane how the bathtub shit ends up being one of the most relevant things to the plot. like genuinely the bathtub just falls through the floor and crushes the dude's arm. the only setup is that the owner of the hotel said not to use the bathtub. the scene is bizarre and stressful and not really for any good or interesting reason. anyway, more details to follow.

marty does some scams with his taxi driver friend wally: wally and marty take the dog with them to a bowling alley where they pretend not to know each other and then get a ton of people to bet against marty under the guise of helping wally get bus fare or something convoluted and dumb. anyway it works and they get lots of money. then the people from the bowling alley are, for some reason, all riding in the same comically large vehicle and then they find marty and wally at the gas station. the group attack them and try to get their money back and also call wally slurs (he's black) and then marty sprays gasoline on them and then they drive off and some dumb shit happens and the gasoline is ignited and also the dog gets out of the car (this is the aforementioned Bullshit A). someone MUST have actually been immolated because he shot a lot of gasoline but we don't see it. this plotline ends here. genuinely. it simply doesn't get brought up again.

marty's childhood friend rachel is pregnant and he is the father: marty and rachel have sex at the start of the movie and then rachel is shown later, pregnant, and marty is definitely the father but he doesn't want to acknowledge it. rachel is married to a guy named ira, and she appears before marty with a black eye one day saying that ira has been beating her. marty sets her up at dion's house while dion's parents are out, and then marty goes and smashes ira's face in with a trophy. marty and rachel take dion dad's car so they can try and find the aforementioned missing dog. they find the dog at a farmer's house, but the farmer says that they're mistaken, but marty presses the issue, and then the farmer pulls out a gun, and then rachel runs him over to stop him from shooting, and then he shoots out the windows while they escape.

then they go back to dion's place and marty finds out that rachel faked the black eye, and dion throws them both out. rachel also leaves ira after telling him that the baby isn't his and ira freaks out. rachel ends up trying to do a scam to the dog owner by getting him to give her money with the promise of bringing out the dog while not actually having the dog. she points at a dog in the distance and then tries to get him to give her the money and then he just walks past her to the dog, sees its not his dog, and then stabs the completely random guy. then he kidnaps her (this is the aforementioned Bullshit B). this was in a pretty populated place but they just cut away so i guess they hoped you wouldn't think about the fact that stabbing someone and then kidnapping someone are pretty big things to do and you can't really just do that in public without being stopped.

anyway then the dog owner guy takes rachel to marty and forces him to also come with, and they go to the farmer's house (the one who has the dog). the dog owner also has a friend who is there, and he exists so that he can get shotgun blasted into the head for shock value, and then dog owner guy and farmer shoot at each other and then both of them die. marty looks for the money in dog owner's pocket, but it's only a few dollars and then pictures of boobs for the rest. rachel was shot though so marty takes her to the ER. then he goes to japan. when he's back he finds out that rachel actually had the baby, and then marty looks at the baby and cries. and then the movie is over.

the problem: nothing matters

one of my biggest problems with the movie is just the fact that almost nothing matters, and there is basically no payoff to anything. it sets up all of these plotlines and goes completely nowhere with them. kay and rockwell are married, and kay is having an affair with marty while marty is benefitting from rockwell's wealth, and somehow these points aren't connected. marty pours gasoline on a bunch of people and their car and its set aflame and somehow this doesn't matter, and wally is basically irrelevant after this scene. dion doesn't matter. the uncle doesn't matter. three people die in front of marty and rachel in a gruesome way and it doesn't matter; marty doesn't even end up getting the money to go to japan from this.

ostensibly, the movie is trying to show how marty's selfishness hurts everyone around him, but it completely fails to make that point matter. we see almost none of the actual ramifications of the harm he causes. we don't see the people who he may or may not have set on fire, we don't see his uncle again, we don't see how dion has been impacted by the car incident or anything, and kay and rockwell are seemingly functionally unaffected in the end by everything that had happened. ira getting his face smashed in by marty doesn't matter and ira doesn't press charges or anything. marty gets to be there for rachel in the end and gets to see his baby.

all of this would still have been an issue, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue had marty not won the match against endo in the end. it isn't as though marty's flaw is that he focuses so hard on training that he neglects everyone else in his life - he neglects everything in his life in pursuit of fame. we barely see marty practice table tennis at all because of how much stupid irrelevant shit happens, and the movie doesn't ever attempt to imply that it's happening off screen. by all means, the movie was setting up marty to lose catastrophically against endo. if marty had lost, then it would have just been the natural end to everything that came before. marty winning genuinely requires the movie to do some exploration as to what that even means for marty, but the movie is completely disinterested in exploring this, and doesn't even attempt to.

the most transparent critique that the movie is trying to make is about american entitlement. marty representing america in table tennis is about as subtle as a train crash, but the critique doesn't really go anywhere, and is also fundamentally strange given marty's identity, which the movie draws conspicuous attention to in the first stretch before completely forgetting about.

marty is an impoverished jewish man in the 50s. him getting away with everything without seeing any real consequences is almost laughably stupid. even ignoring this aspect, the critique simply lacks the subtlety required to be interesting. marty is selfish to an absurd degree, failing to even understand why another person wouldn't just give into his every whim.

an additional part that makes me certain that the writers definitely don't have the chops to write a story critiquing any aspect of america is the fact that kevin o'leary and john catsimatidis starred in this. Wow, business guys acting! the novelty of this is almost enough to make you forget that kevin o'leary is a manifest destiny nutter and john catsimatidis is a republican ghoul. almost!

conclusion

in conclusion, marty supreme is a supremely bad movie. the story meanders through a large suite of pointless plotlines before delivering a flaccid, hollow ending that fails to be a culmination of anything that happened. the directing, cinematography, audio design, and acting are all phenomenal, but it can't even begin to compensate for the utterly abysmal story.

this movie did make me appreciate timothee chalamet, though. his acting was honestly phenomenal. it's a terrible shame that these are the circumstances in which i am coming to appreciate him though.

i don't think the movie is worth seeing at all. if you're a big timmyhead then maybe, but honestly probably just wait until it's on streaming services first.

i gave it 2 stars at first and then i thought about it more and also found out that kevin o'leary is a manifest destiny believer and then decided that 1 star is more than fair.

one last parting note: the ball is cgi and you can tell