Picturehouse Blog

Hollywood just loves a charming hustler. From the original chancer, Paul Newman, to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can and The Wolf Of Wall Street to Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, there's something utterly irresistible about a guy who takes on the system – and wins. With Marty Supreme, director Josh Safdie, working for the first time without his brother Benny and Uncut Gems co-director, adds another classic character to Hollywood's pantheon of hopeless dreamers for whom the odds are just something to triumph over. 

Set in a beautifully shot 1950s New York, the story has Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) as a fast-talking, street-smart eternal optimist who is caught in a dead-end job selling shoes in his uncle's cramped apartment. Marty has a plan: to turn his terminally unfashionable side hustle, table tennis, into a national phenomenon – and absolutely nothing is going to stop him. There just isn't a star more incineratingly hot at the moment than Chalamet, whose turns in Dune, A Complete Unknown and Wonka have established him as one of the most versatile and exciting talents to hit the big screen in decades. His performance as an irresistibly lovable rogue in Marty Supreme looks like it might be his best, most critically acclaimed work to date. "Uncut Gems meets The Catcher In The Rye meets Jerry Maguire, carried by Timothée Chalamet's best performance yet. I loved it so much," said Variety's Ramin Setoodeh. Chalamet is backed up by an uber-cool supporting cast, including a lured-out-of-retirement Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler, The Creator in his movie debut, plus a killer '80s soundtrack. 

The movie's climax reportedly brought audiences to their feet when it premiered at the New York Film Festival. Small surprise then that the low-level hum you can hear is the Oscar buzz building. "Chalamet's no-holds-barred performance could be his Wolf Of Wall Street," said IndieWire. From the unutterably cool A24 stable (this is the studio's most expensive film to date), the whole thing radiates the kind of propulsive, nerve-shredding, high-stakes filmmaking that is the Safdies' trademark. Come Academy Awards time, the film's suitably aspirational title is odds on to become a reality.