Marty Supreme (2025) - Low Key is the Best Film of the Year.

 Marty Supreme (2025)

What a fucking cannon, my friends. What a fucking lethal cannon. 

Marty Supreme is a monumental cinematic work and without a doubt the film that crowns Timothée Chalamet as one of the greatest actors in Hollywood. After the colossal piece of shit that Uncut Gems was (which, to me, remains one of the most confusing and overrated films in the history of cinema), I was terrified of the moment Josh and Benny Safdie would get their hands on a camera again. Later on, I found out about their professional split and that made me curious and, in a way, reassured. With this 2025 film directed solely by Josh, I have to take it back. The direction is insane, sharp, with extremely tight framing that wants to focus ONLY on the characters and nothing else, especially on the character of Marty Mauser. And what a character, Jesus Christ. What a fucking piece of shit. Not because the acting isn’t adequate (we’ll get to that in a moment), but because he is genuinely a colossal piece of shit throughout the entire film and it is incredibly difficult to empathize with him.

That said, Timothée Chalamet’s performance is absolutely massive. Almost entirely on his own, except for a few moments, he carries a two-and-a-half-hour film entirely on his shoulders. 

A true tour de force, a New York odyssey (clearly inspired by Scorsese’s cinema) in which the young actor does not miss a single beat. He is able to drag the viewer along through his misadventures and do so with a level of charisma and power that are explosive and a true joy to witness. I feel like many people have consistently misjudged this actor over the years, and I still can’t understand how that’s even possible. As early as “Call Me by Your Name”, he had already proven himself to be an extraordinary talent, and here he is no exception. He is not only frighteningly gifted (and I truly have seen every single film he’s been in), but beyond being an immense talent he also possesses a monstrous technique that bleeds through the entire film and, in particular, a genuine passion for cinema that is deeply appreciable. So let’s finally drop the idea that his talent is due solely (or even partially) to his looks, because that is simply not true. In “Marty Supreme”, especially, he looks like a fucking mangy squirrel for most of the time. 

Technically, the film is immaculate. 

The direction, as already mentioned, is clean, fluid, sharp, and well-paced. 

The editing is among the best of the year and on several occasions literally made me jump in my seat.

The music, unconventional for the historical period and composed by Oneohtrix Point Never, is one of the film’s strongest pillars and a driving connective force throughout the entire narrative. The cinematography. 

The cinematography in this film is insane. I also found out that the DP is Darius Khondji, the same one who shot “Eddington” and “Mickey 17”. The guy shot three films in the same period, each one beautiful and each one with a completely different visual identity. What an absurd talent. Going back to Chalamet’s performance, this is not meant to take anything away from the other actors. Gwyneth Paltrow is outstanding, Odessa A’zion is incredible, Kevin O’Leary is perfect as the rich bastard, and Tyler, the Creator is always the GOAT. 

The writing of Marty Supreme is one of the most structured of the year. Brilliant and deeply metaphorical. Beneath the thin surface of a ping-pong player lies a far deeper story about searching, acceptance, and loneliness. 

Marty is a societal outcast, a rat trying in every possible way to pursue his own interests and make his way through a brutal society that has already abandoned him.

He tries in every way to succeed in his obsession with becoming world champion, not because he loves the sport, but because he needs to prove to those around him and, above all, to himself that he is not a failure. Within the historical context of the post-war economic boom, Marty is nothing more than a pawn, a marionette in the hands of an illusory America, forced to chase something he can never truly obtain. It’s not money, it’s not victory, but simply the desire to move from being a slimy outcast to a respectable person who holds value in the world. Like “The Brutalist”, Marty Supreme portrays both the beginning and the end of the American Dream, which fades away at the very moment it is conceived. 

The ending is sensational. 

For the first time, Marty abandons his resistance to reality and embraces it with all the empathy he had set aside up until that point. 

The tears running down his face become the very embodiment of humanity and morality. 

Marty, finally, changes.

It would be amusing if this film ultimately earned Chalamet the Oscar for Best Actor, which, in my opinion, is more than a given. Not so much for the award itself, but because it would be the second consecutive year in which the Academy rewards an obsessive character, willing to do anything to succeed, in an A24 film that embodies the American Dream, especially one willing to submit to the compromises imposed by a rich, slimy son of a bitch. 

It would be funny. We’ll see.