Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

It can be tough, when you build an entire movie around a central character that is an asshole, so it helps when you have an actor as strong and charming as Timothee Chalamet. Marty Supreme purports to be a movie about a star table tennis player on his way up, but it’s really a morality play about a grifter who just happens to be really good at ping pong. Chalamet’s Marty is a cocky prick that will sell out anyone up to and including his friends, family and the married women in his apartment complex he occasionally bangs.

Josh Safdie, who co-directed Uncut Gems and Good Time with his brother Benny has gone solo for this ping pong parable while Benny was busy in the octagon with the Rock with this year’s Smashing Machine. While this fares better than that movie, it’s still a bit underwhelming. While Chalamet is phenomenal, and really one of the few actors who could pull off such a forceful performance while also not turning off the audience, it is a lot to saddle his character with. He treats everyone in his orbit like crap, from his mother (Fran Drescher) to the married woman he’s boning (Odessa A’Zion) to the other married woman he’s boning (Gwyneth Paltrow) to his buddy and occasional grifting partner (Tyler the Creator).

Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, buried under a lot of makeup and a stilted acting performance, becomes the somewhat antagonist for Marty. Paltrow’s aging actress Kay Stone is a bright spot, and it’s great to see her sinking her teeth into something, but she’s also on screen too infrequently. Same could be said for A’Zion. For a two and a half-hour movie it moves along briskly, but there were still some things I wish it could’ve squeezed in there.

Jonathan’s grade – B