Ron’s Review

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There’s barely any table tennis in this table tennis movie. I don’t understand the point of this story. Terrible man thinks he’s great for no reason at all. Makes everyone’s life a misery. Turns out he may be good in very specific circumstances?

The plot goes everywhere. Table tennis is incidental. I’m assuming this is a Safdie writing-directing thing but it all seems so pointless because plot points and obstacles are often resolved completely by luck. That’s not great writing. It happens a couple too many times here. There’s also plenty of bad luck but that’s the whole crux of this film.

What’s frustrating is that the characters around Marty are so much more interesting. His girlfriend who’s trying to survive in the world despite being trapped in a loveless marriage. His taxi driver friend who’s extremely good at table tennis but doesn’t have Marty’s safety nets. Kay, the washed up actor trying to make a comeback, also in a loveless marriage but determined to remake her star. The antagonist, a Japanese player who lost his hearing during the war. I mean, hard to be sympathetic for a douche like Marty when that’s his competition.

The table tennis scenes were amazing. Like watching a real match. The speed and agility of the actors is to be commended. I wanted so much more of that. We’d go from a couple of points to the end of the match and every time I’d be frustrated that we wasted time of other plots when the table tennis was right there.

Coming to the acting since Chalamet is a front runner for the Oscars this year. Why? It wasn’t that exciting a performance. He was better as Bob Dylan and even that was annoying. It’s like he’s playing himself here except with even fewer niceties. But then Kieran Culkin won for playing himself last year so I guess that’s just how it is in awards land. I don’t have anything to be excited about in this performance. I don’t think it deserves the accolades.

Finally, the last act. Have people forgotten what that final act is about? It’s supposed to show the protagonist’s reversal but it also has to flow from what we’ve seen so far. Marty goes from a horrible person to someone asking for forgiveness and accepting his responsibilities in the blink of an eye. Again, bad writing.

This movie wasn’t the worst but I don’t think it had anything important to say.

Mon’s Review

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I watched it because of the awards buzz. Listen, the ping pong scenes are amazing. It feels like you’re watching actual matches. The actors appear to be playing the game, which makes the experience authentic. I loved those moments. I wanted more. Let’s be honest here, that’s the only thing I came for. It was great!

But then there’s the rest of the movie. And it’s… seriously exhausting. I get that it’s a Safdie trait to put their character through hell and back in the most ludicrous fashion. But it’s so tiring! And it’s so tedious! The frenzy and frenetic chaos is too much. This is better than Uncut Gems, at least. This film takes a minute to try and give Marty more dimension.

The problem is, he’s a horrible character. The absolute worst. He’s crude and rude and insensitive. He’s outright offensive. I wouldn’t have forgiven this film had this been a profile of a real person (it’s inspired by a real person who I know nothing about); but I am totally appalled by the fact that this is all the original thoughts of the writers and the best they could do was be offensive.

You know, I recently watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and a key aspect of that film is that the protagonist has a dream which gets further and further away because at every turn a new obstacle is presented before him. The film is so well written that the obstacles never feel like contrivances. Can’t say the same about Marty Supreme. Partway through I was like, so no one sleeps in this film?

I’m not even going to get into the pathetic female characters in this film. Again, so tiring. Gwyneth Paltrow’s character makes absolutely no sense. She’s just the femme fatale. And the girlfriend is even worse. Made out to be a kooky baby-trapper.

To top it all, barring Chalamet, none of the other performers are consistent. Everyone has a scene or few where they don’t know what to do. It’s so obvious they’re grappling for direction. There’s also the O’ Leary issue. It was so ugh every time he appeared. And he’s in this film a lot.

Though Chalamet is better than the rest of the cast, I always feel like his performance is monotonous. He does the same thing over and over, just with a different accent and skills. The sports skills are great, but he’s hardly blowing me away here.

My takeaway from the film is that it tried to do too much, and failed to tackle anything. Why prop up an AH of a man when we’re surrounded by them in reality—they think they’re the second coming because they’re straight white men. Do we need a film like this to propel that narrative forward? Art exists to make life better not worse. This film says otherwise.

I watched it. I have an informed opinion. I don’t really care for it.