What is the correlation between a ping-pong ball and swimming sperm? In its first five minutes, Marty Supreme makes sure to come up with one. It’s the kind of opening that quickly states that half of the Safdie duo (though the half that kept custody of Richard Bronstein) is still capable of delivering a “Safdie” film. What follows is a story that is self-aware of the challenges of escaping the “sports film” formula, but that promises to at least try. And, although it can’t be said that it entirely defies the conventions of its genre, at times it does become as confident as its main character and threatens to exceed our expectations. Overall, its situational inventiveness and compelling characters make it worth sitting through its 150-minute runtime.

The premise might sound familiar: the misunderstood athlete whose blind ambition puts his personal relationships at risk while he stubbornly fights to overcome a sequence of challenges and prove everyone wrong. But in Josh Safdie’s world, that story comes to life in 1950s New York. Shot in beautiful 35mm with vintage Panavision anamorphic lenses, and with mesmerizing costume design, the visuals alone set this 50s period film apart from most in recent memory, except, of course, for Carol (2015). Our misunderstood protagonist is Marty Mauser, loosely based on real-life ping-pong champion Marty Reisman. His ambition is to become the ping-pong world champion, and the obstacle keeping him from that dream is his inability to pay his way to Japan, where he’s confident he’ll finally defeat his rival. It’s a journey filled with obstacles mostly beyond the ping-pong table, in the form of a pen industry magnate and a dangerous hustler whose only family is his dog, and also with romance, as he’s torn between Rachel, his aimless but caring childhood friend and Kay, a sophisticated former actress, both finding in Marty’s intensity an escape from their soulless husbands.

Maybe because of the way in which Timothée Chalamet has been making unsubtle parallels between himself and his character in this movie, even before the movie’s marketing campaign began, it’s easy to mistake one’s ambitions for the other’s. This year, Chalamet transformed his persona into one that approaches an artistic career as a competitive sport. Meanwhile, we can’t help but view Marty’s story as a way for both Safdie and Chalamet to explore their own unwavering commitment to their art. But, if anything, this film is proof that art is not a sport, though both can be highly entertaining. When watching Marty arrogantly talk at the press, or when he charms his way into getting what he wants from friends, family, and lovers, the experience is similar to when witnessing Chalamet campaign: we’re fascinated by the authenticity, refreshed by the confidence, but left a bit confused by the amount of energy that goes into talking about doing it instead of just doing it. However, as opposed to real-life Chalamet, it’s the doing part that is lacking in fictional Mauser. Marty Mauser’s focus isn’t on that orange ball he keeps trying to convince his friend’s father to produce in industrial quantities. Not only do we rarely see Marty train or try to figure out how he’ll beat Koto Endo and the innovative techniques Marty couldn’t get past on a previous confrontation, but we have no idea why his assumed obsession with ping-pong even exists.

What we actually see Marty do is share controversial opinions, a dark sense of humor, and a blatant but somehow enchanting arrogance. It’s mostly entertaining, and it wouldn’t be a problem if his actions matched his words, but while his verbal declarations present him as ruthless, his actions never go that far, at least not far enough to risk permanently damaging something, someone, or himself. Where the story really shines is when Marty is at his lowest. For anyone who’s ever had to hold an unfulfilling odd job to make ends meet while pursuing a dream, the humiliating sequence of him and his friend going on a ping-pong comedy tour stings. Embarrassment is a real aspect of unrelentingly chasing a goal, and Marty sure goes beyond it. But without real sacrifice, real loss, real compromise — without walking away from people or places irrevocably, it’s hard to fully buy into the level of ambition he’s trying to convince us he has. If anything, it’s Rachel who, after one of Marty’s brutally honest speeches, shows the biggest character transformation and actually renounces her home, her family, and almost her life, to attain what she wants. Marty talks about succeeding “purely on the basis of [his] own talent”, but barely anything he does to get to Japan has to do with his talent. For him, it really is about doing it his own way. He won’t bend to anyone, so naturally that ends up being the price for his ticket. And bend he does.

It’s not clear what Marty’s vision of success is. He talks about being the world’s number one ping-pong player, but judging from the way he spends the movie demanding fancy accommodations, getting acquainted with rich celebrities, and promising everyone he has wronged or temporarily abandoned that he will compensate them with money, it’s fair to assume success also has something to do with financial abundance. However, the money aspect gets pushed aside when his only chance at beating his rival becomes a Japanese pen marketing activation. If proving he’s the best was his goal, being satisfied with winning in this arena seems odd, as it’s not exactly one that will alter his official status or provide the global audience he wants to gain recognition from. And it’s hard to believe that he just wanted to prove he’s the best to himself, as he’s been declaring he already knows that for two hours at this point. Marty seems happy to have gone through hell and back to not even try to participate in the tournament that could legitimize him. He walks away not making sure what doors that final match might have opened for him, other than the one that leads back home. Still, the journey is exhilarating, and it will remind millennial audience members of the fun their favorite 90s classics provided. Thematically, however, it seems to confuse a (still compelling) exploration of entitlement and the unrelenting stubbornness of doing things in one’s own way with the laser-focused ambition that sets clear goals and destroys anything that threatens to impede its advancement.

Rating 3.5/5

As promised at the start, this is a high-energy and creative story that will no doubt set itself apart from the rest of its category for a while. It unfortunately doesn’t escape the formula where it matters the most, shying away from forcing Marty Mauser to make any decisions he can’t apologize for later, and leaving us with the dissatisfaction that he might have partially abandoned the road less traveled in the end. If the writing wasn’t so preoccupied with making him sound so disruptive, that ending might’ve landed. “Dream big” is great advice as long as you make sure to act bigger than you talk.