Movie Review: Electric Timothée Chalamet Is Excellent Efforter in Propulsive ‘Marty Supreme’

But the thing is: everyone may want to rule the world, but not everyone really believes they can do it. One could argue that this is what separates the true strivers from the rest of us.

And Marty – played by Chalamet in delicious synergy of actor, role and whatever fairy dust makes the performance feel predictable and magically fresh – is a try. With every fiber of his restless, relaxed body. They should add that to the dictionary definition.

Needless to say, Marty is a New Yorker.

It also goes without saying that Chalamet is a New Yorker.

And so is Safdie, whom writer-director Chalamet has called “the street poet of New York.” So, where else could this story be set?

It’s 1952, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Marty Mouser is a salesman at his uncle’s shoe store, who runs into the storeroom to have a heated exchange with his girlfriend. Suddenly we’re seeing footage of the sperm’s journey – talk about strivers! – Up to one egg. Which, of course, turns into a pingpong ball.

That witty opening sequence wouldn’t be the only thing reminiscent of “Uncut Gems,” which Safdie co-directed with his brother Benny before the two parted ways for solo projects. That movie, which sounds a lot like a precursor to “Marty Supreme,” began as a journey through the dazzling innards of a rare opal, only to end up inside Adam Sandler’s colon, mid-colonoscopy.

Sandler’s Howard Ratner was also a New York struggler, but sadder and more troubled. Marty is young, determined, adventurous – always with an eye on the future. He is a great salesman: “I can even sell shoes to a handicapped person,” he absurdly claims. But what he plans to bring to the world has nothing to do with shoes. It’s about table tennis.

How likely is it that this Jewish kid from the Lower East Side could become the face of a sport in America that will soon be “staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box?”

For Marty, absolutely a possibility. Still, he knows that no one in America cares about table tennis. He is so determined to prove everyone wrong, starting with the British Open in London, that when there is a problem getting cash for his trip, he pulls a gun on one of his coworkers to get it.

That armed robbery thing aside, Marty heads to London, where he talks fast in a suite at the Ritz. Here, he spies fellow guest Kay Stone, a former movie star who is married to an insufferable tycoon.

Kay is skeptical, but Marty finds a way to woo her. Really, all he has to say is: “Come see me.” Once she sees him playing, she sneaks into his room wearing a lace corselet.

This would be a good time to stop and consider Chalamet’s subtly changed appearance. He’s stick-thin – oh, he never stops moving. His mustache is thin. Her skin is scarred with acne – enough to take away any movie-star glow. The most amazing thing is that her eyes are adorable and small behind the round glasses. Certainly not those movie-star eyes.

But still, almost all the faces in “Marty Supreme” are extraordinary. In a film with over 100 characters, we have well-known actors; Non-acting personality as Marty’s friend Wally); and exciting newcomers like Odessa A’Zion as Marty’s feisty girlfriend Rachel.

There are also several non-actors in small parts, as well as cameos from the likes of David Mamet and even high wire artist Philippe Petit. The baffling series makes one curious as to how it all came together – is casting director Jennifer Venditti taking on interns? Production notes tell us that for a bustling scene in a bowling alley, youths were recruited from a sports trading-card convention.

Elsewhere on the creative team, composer Daniel Lopatin succeeds in channeling both Marty’s beating heart and the ricochet of pingpong balls into his evocative score. The screenplay, by Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein, based on real-life table tennis hustler Marty Reisman, throbbes with its never-stopping heartbeat. The same dangerous aesthetic applies to Darius Khondji’s camera work.

Now back to London, where Marty reached the final against Japanese player Koto Endo. “I’ll drop the third atomic bomb on them,” he boasts – it’s not his only questionable World War II quip. But Endo, with his unorthodox paddle and grip, prevails.

After a stint as a side act with the Harlem Globetrotters, which includes a pingpong game with the Seals – you’ll have to take our word for it, guys, we’re running out of space – Marty returns home, determined to make the impending World Championships in Tokyo.

But he’s in trouble – remember he took the cash at gunpoint? What’s worse is that he has no money.

So Marty is running away. And he will do anything to get to Japan, no matter how dirty or dangerous. Even if that means completely weakening herself, or putting friends in danger – or abandoning loyal and brave Rachel.

Is there more to Marty than his obsessive goal? If so, he doesn’t know it yet. But the lyrics from another song used in the film are instructive here: “Everyone’s got a lesson to learn sometime.”

So can a concentrated effortmaker ultimately learn something new about his life?

We will have to see. As Marty might say: “Come see me.”

“Marty Supreme,” an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language, sexual content, some violent content/bloody images and nudity.” Running time: 149 minutes. Four out of four stars.

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