Marty (not-so) Supreme

I may be missing something, but Marty Supreme is a bit shite.

Let me explain.

Over the course of this film (just shy of 2 and a half hours), a dog experiences at least 3 or 4 traumatic events, after which is left to fend for itself, a friend of our protagonist, a taxi driver called Wally, nigh on loses his livelihood helping Marty in a hustle, a random guy who doesn’t know Marty from Adam ends up getting stabbed as an unwitting accomplice in another hustle, and the girl he impregnates is left fending for herself for 7/8 months before, upon his reappearance in her life, is embroiled in the most high-stress situations culminating in the distress a premature birth. And even here, having got her to the hospital, and despite her begging him to stay, Marty abandons her. You see, he has to get to Japan. To win at table tennis. That’s what it’s all about.

Like Safdie’s previous films, Good Time and Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme is just stressful to watch. But Supreme fails where the others succeed in the totally undeserved happy(ish) ending. Whereas previous protagonists suffer the inevitable consequences, Marty Mauser is able to fly to Japan, force an exhibition match against the Japanese player Koto Endo (who is deeply envious of and who beat him in a previous match), get a flight back with U.S. soldiers (he has no way of flying back as he has no money left), and get back in time to have an emotional neonatal unit moment with his new born son whilst the semi-conscious mother recovers. Oh, and this kid is no doubt born into poverty. Though Marty did just spend the entire film hustling his way to the $1,500 he needed to play the table tennis (this is the protagonist’s primary motivation and it comes about in a coherent way but I can’t be arsed typing it all out step-by-step, and besides, I assume you’ve already seen the film if reading this). But, needs must, and all that.

To be fair, and this is why I say happy(ish) ending, Marty’s breakdown into uncontrollable tears at the film’s end is open to interpretation. It could be tears of joy, the result of emotional exhaustion, or it could be a realisation of everything he has just done and the pointlessness of it. I’m personally going for that epiphany of pointlessness, as that would fit in with Safdie’s previous work in a sense. As with Good Time and Uncut Gems, the stress inducement is in the completely unnecessary and unwise decision-making, and the self-made conundrums. What all these films have in common is the idiot at the centre of it all, and the idiot’s struggle of, in some way, at least, survival. Though not life-or-death, Safdie’s films, on some level, have an awareness of the absurdity of life in contemporary Western society. Now I have no reason to believe these works are critical of capital itself, or even of neoliberal individualism or whatever. But they do tap in to the sense of the dog-eat-dog, every man for himself type of existence we all endure. These films are full of the most selfish, alienated, human behaviour. Nothing matters but the personal goal.

But, you could argue, the personal goal is at the heart of all cinematic works. Of all storytelling, even. And I would disagree, even if on a technicality. The personal goal of Safdie’s protagonists is wholly destructive to all around them, and I’m not convinced this is done in a ‘morality tale’ sense. The others in these films, the human beings each protagonist knows or comes to know on the course of their destruction, are nothing more than collateral damage in the obtaining of the individual goal. And though there is a redeeming quality to this - how one person’s actions and events impact on another person and so on, and so on, generating a chain of events that ultimately link people who will never know or even be aware of each other - my personal impression is of this film being a product of, as opposed to a critique of, the pure toxicity of our societies interpretation of individual freedom, free-will, whatever.

According to the film’s lead, (apparently, I haven’t seen this interview, just the quote), Timothee Chalamet, the message of the film is this:

Believe in yourself, dream big, and don’t give a damn what people think of you! Go for it!

Nice sentiment, and true to an extent. But no matter what, don’t traumatise animals who have no clue as to what is going on, and don’t abandon a woman you impregnated because you want to prove a point playing table tennis. Some things are more important than your dream. This is a notion that has been completely lost. People are so afraid of being nothing, they think that anything but making themselves the centre of everything in pursuit of their own solitary goal does actually make them nothing. This is because we have become atomised - so totally alienated. The reason you can’t follow your dream is because everyone else is intent on following their dream and some make it and most don’t. It is a constant fight - a profound struggle - and needlessly so. After all, if every one of us achieves our dreams, who’ll clean up the waste?

Not Marty Mauser, that’s for sure. He’s way above all that.

Fuck off.