Marty's Supreme Complexity
On New Year’s Day, I saw Marty Supreme. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d greatly been enjoying Timothée Chalamet’s press antics for the movies from rapping alongside EsDeeKid to having an orange blimp emblazoned with the movie’s title hover over a handful of cities. I was hesitant because I didn’t really love the last Josh Safdie movie I saw: Uncut Gems.
Since seeing the movie, though, I’ve thought about it a lot, which tends to be a good sign for me. After all, one purpose of good art is to get us to think, to reconsider our views on the world around us, to look at things a different way.
Fair warning: there will be some spoilers for the movie, so proceed with caution if you haven’t had a chance to see it yet.
At first, I thought the movie was ok, solid even. I gave it 3.5 stars on Letterboxd, meaning I enjoyed it more than I didn’t. Sure, the movie felt a little long, but I liked it more than I expected to. Things really clicked into place for me when I saw another moviegoer’s review on Letterboxd. This user described their take on the movie loosely as follows.
The movie is about a young Jewish man in a post-World War II (and post-Holocaust) world fighting to define a legacy and personal history. For most of the movie, that legacy is being established via Marty’s table tennis pursuit. For example, he wants to beat Koto Endo (even in an exhibition match) to prove to himself that he’s the best; at a certain point, beating Endo alone becomes bigger to Marty than winning the World Championship. At the end of the movie, Marty breaks down into tears upon seeing his newborn son for the first time because his son is physical proof of his legacy. No matter what happens going forward, Marty Mauser will live on through this child.
That view of the movie made the whole thing snap together for me. Once I read that, I found myself frequently returning to the film and the different elements I enjoyed. It surprised me, though, that I’ve seen a fair bit of people not liking the film. One common complaint of the movie is that Chalamet’s characterization of Marty Mauser is unlikeable.
But that’s the point.
Marty is a jerk all throughout the film. He is willing to do whatever it takes to establish his legacy. Whether that requires him to hustle strangers at bowling alleys or put his baby’s mother in harm’s way or get spanked by Mr. Wonderful in front of others (yes, the guy from Shark Tank), Marty is focused on the end goal. He is a walking definition of “the end justifies the means,” and that isn’t a good thing.
The power of the movie is that we’re still rooting for him in his final match against Endo. Despite everything awful we’ve seen him do, we want him to win, and I think that confusion is a point of discomfort for some audiences. Why would we want a good thing to happen to a bad person? Because we’re inherently complicated as people.
A reason why Shakespeare is so highly touted today is because of his ability to write enduring and complex characters. Hamlet avenges his father’s death, but he waffles on how to do so. Depending on the adaptation, he’s even cruel toward Ophelia.
Shakespeare’s villains are also dripping in complexion. Look at Iago from Othello. Iago is a close friend of Othello who secretly hates the man and plants the seeds that will lead to the protagonist’s downfall. There are many suppositions as to why Iago wants to see Othello’s demise, but he never states his true objective. Is it jealousy of his title? His wife? We can’t know for sure. Depending on the critic, some might call him a hero or evil incarnate or a psychopath. Iago isn’t so straightforward.
In an age where cancel culture is prominent, I think we can be too quick to look for the good or the bad, seeing the world only in black and white. That isn’t to say that people shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. They surely should. But we are inherently complex creatures. No one will get through this life unscathed. To deny the complexity of the human condition is to cripple our ability to learn and grow.
Marty Mauser is a cautionary tale on the danger of vanity. You can think that your shit doesn’t stink and that your success is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean you have to harm others on your path to victory. There is a bit of Marty inside all of us, and if we’re not careful, we can make the same mistakes.
Stories are important because they help us to live imagined lives and, more importantly, learn from the mistakes others make. That’s why the Greeks wrote their tragedies. That’s why Shakespeare penned his plays. And that’s what makes Marty Supreme so intriguing to me. We shouldn’t like Marty (at least not for most of the movie). We shouldn’t want to be like him, yet we also find ourselves rooting for him because, like Marty, we’re complicated.
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