Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme is the story of someone who sets a goal but has no idea how he will achieve that goal and no idea what he will do if he doesn't achieve the goal. All he knows is that he will achieve the goal. This personification of an individualistic and self-destructive mindset is played to perfection by Timothee Chalamet in what I would say is easily his best role to date. Throughout the movie, Marty forces himself along his journey by lying, gaslighting and stealing. But Marty isn't doing it for one of the three things that typically drive people (money, love or power), he's doing it purely for the love of the game. This is clearly seen when he is brought to tears after defeating Endo in what wasn't even an officially sanctioned exhibition game. He went on this journey exclusively for his own gratification and in order to prove to himself that he had purpose. A further analysis of his motivations from the brief glimpses we get of what his upbringing may have been like suggest that he likely wanted to break out of the monotonous lives he found the people around him stuck in. It is also in his visits back home that we see the human side of Marty. One might initially be led to assume that he collects a piece of the Great Pyramid to sell but instead he does it to give as a gift to his mother. He also never hesitates to help Rachel even when he already has so many items on his plate. Speaking of Rachel, Josh Safdie does an incredible job of mirroring Marty's stubbornness with Rachel's extremely pushoverish attitude about life. She never seems to want to take command of her own destiny outside of the one time she goes off on Marty but then immediately re-seeks his approval. Her presence in the movie seemed like it was showing the audience the opposite side of the coin on which Marty resides. That I think is the main purpose of the film, it implores the audience to ask themselves where on the spectrum between self-destructive will and caught in the drift of society's ocean you want to be by showing you the result of choosing either path. On the one hand it appears that Marty achieves his dream but when he comes back to his newborn child he seems to come upon a realization of what his self destructiveness would cause him to miss in life whereas Rachel's choices lead her to becoming little more than a side character in someone else's story. I love how well the movie engrosses you into a world that feels like the 1950s as well as exploring Marty's intersectionality and the culture of New York City during his time. Despite all these strengths I don't think Marty Supreme is a perfect film. Certain plot points and beats were both over and underutilized. The whole situation with the dog especially seemed like it could've been a bit more fleshed out or perhaps replaced with something else entirely. Overall, Marty Supreme delivers several strong performances from a cast that had several risky choices within it and succeeds at showing the audience what you can accomplish from sheer will alone.