Marty Supreme | Film Review

 

Table Tennis player Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is determined to be great - by any means necessary.

This is the 9th of 10 Best Picture nominees I need to watch, and as much as the premise of this one didn't grab me, I'd heard great things about it, so I was looking forward to seeing it.

For me, this film was average. There were things I liked about it, but overall it wasn't one of my favourite nominees.

I found the story hard to get into. I was watching it with other people and they only made it maybe 10 minutes before checking out, and while I was interested enough to keep going, I can see why others would be put off.

My initial impression of the premise was that table tennis is one of the most boring sports to make a movie about, but my mind was completely changed by seeing the way the games were shot. These scenes were so captivating and fun to watch.

I found Marty to be a really frustrating character. As the viewer we want to root for him, but his arrogance makes it impossible.

The film is really well written, and the characters feel authentic. But while being authentic, all of them, bar Marty, were a bit bland. I wasn't interested in them as individuals and couldn't connect to any of them.

While I thought the performances were good, particularly Chalamet, after seeing the film I'm surprised by the variety of supporting nominations for different awards - I don't think any of the supporting performances were particularly strong.

The story itself has entertaining moments, but overall it isn't that interesting. If you don't care about, or like, Marty, then there's nothing to keep you watching. And even if you do care about Marty, it still might not keep you interested for the whole runtime.

Overall I'm glad I've seen the movie, but it wasn't anything special for me. There were some fun moments, but all in all it isn't particularly entertaining or memorable.

6.5/10