Table tennis and world domination

Timothée Chalamet stars as an athlete with grand plans in Josh Safdie's 'Marty Supreme'

- Uday Bhatia

Desperate for money, Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) enlists his friend, Rachel (Odessa A'zion), who's likely carrying his unborn child, for a hopelessly long shot in an endless series of long shots. She phones the shady Ezra (Abel Ferrara), whose dog Marty lost, then tracked down. When Rachel asks for a finder's fee of $2,000, Ezra balks, says he got the dog for free.

What if I was a doctor operating on your mother, Rachel improvises, would you refuse the surgery because you got your mother for free? "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard," Ezra says. Rachel immediately retorts: "Well, then I guess you don't know anything about love."

The hustle never ends in Josh Safdie's films, four with his brother Benny, and now his solo feature, Marty Supreme. It's a constant dance of deception, but there's also a strange purity to it, the instigators of chaos so far out on a limb that you know they're fully bought into their own bullshit. Rachel can say in all seriousness to the man being resold his own dog that it's really about love because she believes it—just as Marty believes he has a purpose, “an obligation to see a very specific thing through”.