PING PONG MERRILY ON HIGH

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET IS AN ABSOLUTE SMASH AS A SHOE SALESMAN WITH BIG DREAMS OF MAKING HIS NAME IN THE WORLD OF TABLE TENNIS

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET wields a ping pong bat with verve and strokes his way into Oscar contention in a lifeaffirming drama loosely inspired by the life of Jewish New York table tennis prodigy Marty Reisman.

Co-written by director Josh Safdie and longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein, Marty Supreme globe-trots in the company of a fast-talking dreamer with unshakeable self-belief, who opens the film by impregnating his married lover to a euphoric burst of German synth-pop band Alphaville's 1984 anthem, Forever Young.

"Let us die young or let us live forever," sings lead vocalist Marian Gold at the start of the second verse, in a mantra which Marty Mauser (Chalamet) can support.