Kevin and I went to see “Marty Supreme“, the new Timothee Chalamet movie. We loved it.
Go see this movie.
The movie is getting some well deserved awards buzz, and when you see it, it’s not hard to see why. The movie is a sports movie, but this time the story is about my sport, table tennis. The real-life table tennis legend, Marty Reisman, and his memoir, “The Money Player” inspired the movie. The indomitable Larry Hodges has an excellent review. Larry knew and played the real Marty, and offers a detailed list of what was real and what was fictitious (a lot.)
Spoilers ahead
The movie is set in the 1950’s when table tennis was played with smaller balls, the paddles were totally different (no sponge), and the game was different too. Not only in how you played, but the points you needed to win. (21 instead of 11.) Today, we call this kind of table tennis “classic” table tennis. Classic table tennis follows the old rules, and uses no sponge, hard bat paddles. (Events include hard bat, sandpaper and others.) It has a ardent following, a niche within a niche sport.
The musical score combines 1950’s music with 1980’s. (Think “Forever Young” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”.) This mix of 50’s and 80’s music works.
The movie begins with Marty working in his uncle’s shoe store, hustling to get enough money to go to London to play in the British Open. We are soon launched into the London scene where Marty beats almost everyone to get himself into the finals. There, he faces a Japanese player, Koto Endo, played by professional Japanese table tennis player Koto Kawaguchi. Endo is using a different kind of paddle, one with sponge on one side. He also has a grip known as a “pen holder” grip. (There are a number of different ways to hold your paddle. Pen hold refers to players who hold their paddles as though they are holding a pen. The most common type is the shake hands grip.)
Spoiler alert.
Endo defeats Marty.
Not a spoiler alert, the balls were added by CGI. If you don’t know anything about table tennis, you won’t notice a thing. But if you do, you will notice that the ball behaves differently, not how it would in real life.
Marty is devastated by this defeat and is determined to beat Endo at the World Champions in Tokyo. But he is broke and unemployed. The rest of the movie is all about how Marty lies, cheats, cons, steals, and basically does everything he can to get to Tokyo to play (and beat) Endo.
Spoiler alert.
And yet, he only plays Endo at an exhibition match, and not at the World Champions.
One subplot was unnecessary, and I thought it could’ve been cut, and that was the whole dog thing. (Including bath tubs falling through the ceiling, shoot outs, kidnapping, stabbings etc.) I’m sure in the editing process trade offs have to be made. I think the editing choice here was sacrificing character development for action. For example, I would’ve loved to have seen more of Marty’s relationships with his mother (played by Fran Drescher of “The Nanny” fame) and his “best friend,” the cab driver.
The “love interest” whose name I can’t remember (she’s married to another man, but is having Marty’s baby) is given significant screen time as she accompanies Marty on all his frenetic hijinks. But we are never sure of Marty’s emotional connection to her or the baby she’s having until the very end.
The other supporting role that is interesting is his involvement with Gwyneth Paltrow’s character. (She plays a has-been Hollywood actress married to a wealthy businessman.) This is handled well. I think Paltrow should get a supporting actress nomination for her work.
Overall, I think that the character arcs of the supporting roles are uneven.
But there are lots of things that work well, and make this a must see movie. The movie perfectly captures the obsessions that players have for their sport. It also captures how most people don’t take it seriously as a sport. There’s one scene where Marty declares that he is an athlete, and when he’s asked “what sport,” he replies, “Table Tennis” and the person he’s talking to sneers “ping pong?” That happens all the time. Even to top Olympic players.
Timothee Chalamet gives the Marty character charm and intensity. He certainly deserves a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
The movie is shot with lots of tight and close up shots. This is wonderful because it adds to the intensity as the Marty character plunges from one ill-advised scrape to the next. There is a wonderful scene where a box of orange balls is thrown out of a window.
The movie’s run time is 150 minutes.
The movie is well worth seeing. Go see it.
