American Hustler: Timothée Chalamet as “Marty Supreme”

Back in my Roger Corman days, I was friendly with a co-worker, Rodman Flender, who had serious directorial ambitions. He came from a family bursting with artistic talent, and once happened to mention that his sister’s son was a budding actor. Of course I smiled benignly: in SoCal pretty much EVERYONE has a relative with acting aspirations . . . and most of them flame out rather quickly. But Rodman’s young nephew turned out to be the exception to the rule, one of those rare creatives whose screen appearances take on a life of their own. You’ve surely heard of Timothée Chalamet, a young man whose talent, combined with his vibrant off-screen personality, makes him a true Hollywood star.

 Chalamet’s breakout performance was in a 2017 Luca Guadagnino film, Call Me By Your Name, in which he played a teenager gobsmacked by his sexual desire for a slightly older young man. I went to see it out of curiosity, but have since concluded that Guadagnino’s work (which also includes the tennis flick, Challengers) is not for me. I find it overly swoony, with everything basically revolving around a hunger for sex. Sill, Call Me By Your Name, which gained international attention, led to Chalamet’s first Oscar nomination, and he was on his way.

 Never one to be typecast, Chalamet went on to play such diverse roles as a callous young stud in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, a charming boy next door in Gerwig’s Little Women, and an outer-space messiah-type in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune trilogy. Perhaps his biggest leap was into convincingly playing (and singing) the part of the young Bob Dylan in 2024’s A Complete Unknown, a role that gave him his second Oscar nom. Now he’s back in another starring role that has required him to master a brand-new skill-set. The word is that he practiced ping-pong for seven years to take on the role of Marty Mauser (based on the real-life Marty Reisman), a bad boy of table tennis in the early 1950s.

 Marty Supreme, directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, continues the Safdie brothers’ passion for hyperkinetic filmmaking. There’s no way you can follow all the twists and turns of the plot, but it brilliantly conveys a New York state of mind: everyone is a little angry, and in a great hurry to get somewhere. For Marty, championship-level table tennis is a way to escape his salesman job at his uncle’s shoe store and move into the wider world. But there are complications: his family disapproves, he’s short on money for travel, and his casual but sometimes intense passion for the cute young thing downstairs will have its own unforeseen consequences (as is hinted by a rather remarkable credit sequence at the top of the film).

 Critics have talked about Marty Supreme as an exposé of the always-hustling American personality type, and I’m sure they’re right. There’s one element, though, that I haven’t seen mentioned. The film is very specifically set just after World War II, and—in one way or another—all these characters seem shell-shocked, whether or not they came anywhere near a battlefield. Marty’s #1 ping-pong opponent, a Japanese young man with an emotionless face and manner, is said to have been deafened in childhood by the bombing of Tokyo. The immigrant teammate Marty strives to outrank has numbers tattooed on his arm, courtesy of the Nazis. The always cocky Marty announces himself—an American Jew—as Hitler’s worst nightmare. The role fits Chalamet so well, I believe, because he too is hustling for fame and fortune. 

 

A Film for Those Who Like Their Gems Unpolished

Frankly, I can’t pretend I enjoyed watching Uncut Gems. And anyone who hates the unrelenting pace of today’s New York City should definitely stay away. This film is so loud, so hyperactive, and so profane that it leaves you with barely a moment to catch your breath. Yes, it feels real, but this isn’t a reality I’d personally enjoy spending time in.

That being said, I have to confess I admire what the Safdie brothers have accomplished. Before Uncut Gems, I had never seen anything by Josh and Benny Safdie, the young (ages 35 and 33) indie filmmakers who grew up in the Big Apple and have incorporated its frenetic rhythms into their movies. Their exuberant fascination with the seamy side of New York life is much like that of the early Martin Scorsese, which makes it not at all surprising that Scorsese himself is an executive producer of this film. Vivid characters, rat-a-tat dialogue, spot-on casting, Darius Khondji’s sometimes dazzling cinematography: all these contribute to a view of Manhattan’s Diamond District that is too specific to be disbelieved. Most essential, of course, is the central performance of Adam Sandler, who has earned legitimate kudos for going far beyond the goofy comic roles of his earlier films.

Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a small-time Diamond District jeweler with a big-time gambling problem. His attempt to sell basketball star Kevin Garnett (nicely playing a more naïve version of himself) on a particularly fabulous South African black opal coincides with his desperate need to pay off a massive gambling debt or risk facing the wrath of some particularly twitchy loan sharks. But then there’s also the wrath of  his wife, ferociously played by Idina Menzel. She may or may not know about his girlfriend in the city, but she certainly recognizes that he’s been neglecting his three kids for the sake of his personal obsessions.

Obsession is definitely something this film is about. Howard wants to be a good guy—really, he does—but his fascination with the thrill of a big financial score leaves him too hopped up to settle for quiet domesticity in the suburbs. The intensity of his behavior is dialed to eleven. A motormouth at the best of times, he jokes, he flirts, he rants, he cajoles, he connives, he ingratiates himself with those in power and tries to channel what clout he has left against those lower in the pecking order. But he proves not the only obsessive in Unxcut Gems. Kevin Garnett, who in the timeframe of the movie was a Boston Celtic forward involved in a crucial playoff series with the New York Knicks, is obsessed with anything that will bring him luck on the basketball court. The thugs pursuing Howard are not going to be stopped, no matter what. And the pretty young employee who doubles as his girlfriend (newcomer Julia Fox) is loyal to a fault. At first I wondered why in the world she’d cling to a not-so-attractive middle-aged guy with powerful enemies: surely she could do better. I suspect the answer is that she too is obsessed, and obsessions can make little sense at the best of times.

Another theme that sheds light on this film is the randomness of the universe. No one—not Howard, not Kevin, not the loan sharks—can absolutely guarantee what is to come. Throughout scenes depicting basketball games, casino betting, gem auctions, and business shenanigans, we have an uneasy feeling that something unexpected is about to happen. And, sure enough, it does. As the Safdies know full well, that’s the way of the world.