“I will do to him what Auschwitz couldn’t,” says Marty Mauser, an up-and-coming table tennis player describing his Jewish competitor. “I can say that because I am Jewish,” he adds, casually following that up with “I am Hitler’s worst nightmare.” In another scene, moments before boarding a flight to Japan to face one of his rivals, he remarks that he would drop a third atom bomb on the country. Later, when told about an Agatha Christie book signing, Marty dismisses it as “boring.” His irreverence, powered by brutal, no-filter honesty, is electric. A morally reprehensible character Josh Safdie designs for our condemnation, and our reluctant admiration, on the court, Marty is one heck of a player — a force to be reckoned with. Off it, however, he is a grifter, a swindler who uses deceit and compulsive lying to get his way. But life slowly but steadily catches up with him.
Though Marty is confident in his ability to become one of the greatest table tennis players, the world doesn’t see him in the same way — yet. He self-mythologizes to the point of delusion. He believes he is already one of the greats, even though he doesn’t have the accolades or the status to prove it. Marty’s grandiose view of life overpowers him, breeding a sense of superiority that places him above accountability — which is meant for lesser-mortals like his co-worker at the shoe shop or a girlfriend he impregnates and later abandons. While the people in his life must unfailingly show up for him, even give him multiple chances to redeem himself, he treats their trust as expendable and faces no consequences. He dangles the promise of a handsome payoff once he gets rich, yet never invests in or nurtures these relationships enough for them to bear fruit. He craves instant results, and the moment reality deviates — even slightly — from the glorious future he has imagined, he refuses to compromise.
A deplorable hustler, fast-talking Marty finds his competitors to be his moral and temperamental opposites. One of them is a war hero who survived an air raid during WWII, transforming a life-long disability into strength. The other is a holocaust survivor — one who risked his life trying to make sure his fellow inmates at Auschwitz were well fed. Endo’s respectful, calm demeanor in the final match stands in sharp contrast to Marty’s dustbin-flinging, hissy fit-coded meltdown at British Open. While Marty made no bones about his slights at Endo, the Japanese player allowed Marty one last match, risking humiliation and putting at stake his reputation.
{{/usCountry}}A deplorable hustler, fast-talking Marty finds his competitors to be his moral and temperamental opposites. One of them is a war hero who survived an air raid during WWII, transforming a life-long disability into strength. The other is a holocaust survivor — one who risked his life trying to make sure his fellow inmates at Auschwitz were well fed. Endo’s respectful, calm demeanor in the final match stands in sharp contrast to Marty’s dustbin-flinging, hissy fit-coded meltdown at British Open. While Marty made no bones about his slights at Endo, the Japanese player allowed Marty one last match, risking humiliation and putting at stake his reputation.
{{/usCountry}}Back home in New York, Safdie conjures characters who are anything but bystanders in Marty’s journey. They are not merely witnessing Marty’s ascent to glory from a distance but actively participating in his schemes, sometimes even matching his freak, upping the ante in a game of manipulation and trickery. Rachel (played by a persuasive Odessa A’zion) picks up Marty’s deceitful ways and becomes a bit of a hustler herself. The makeshift black eye is the physical corollary of Marty’s corrupt ways rubbing off on her almost like an infectious virus which has now found a new host. Rachel is openly infatuated with Marty but Kate (the versatile Gwyneth Paltrow) is far more restrained. Her experience and maturity allow her to see through Marty’s deceptions and her decision to support him financially stems less from belief than from the ennui of a dead marriage. In Marty, she sees an adventurous, charming younger man who promises just enough thrill to puncture her domestic stagnation. But a single critical review of her play is enough for her to sever ties with him entirely.
It’s impressive how smartly Safdie blindsides the viewer. What seems like a sports biopic chronicling the meteoric rise of a table tennis champion quickly transforms into a character study of a self-absorbed man whose narcissism implodes in real-time. Safdie also gets the mechanics of filming table tennis matches just right: we get exhilarating background music, sweat-drenched players swinging bats spontaneously, and the audience cheering, completely hooked as they watch the ball go to-and-fro. The anxiety in these scenes is palpable. Kevin O’Leary, as Milton Rockwell, is capitalism’s stand-in. He is just the billionaire jerk the viewer would want to hate and ranks second in the film’s list of unlikeable characters Marty is first.
One of the film’s themes is self-sabotage, typical of a grandiose narcissist. Marty not only dismisses a generous offer to play an exhibition match against his arch rival, he lambasts it. He is offended that the opportunity even presented itself, to the point he doesn’t once consider it. In his warped logic, even pretending to lose to a rival he had already lost to would be beneath him. He forfeits an opportunity that could have secured his finances, sparing him the need to scheme his way out of a rightfully imposed fine. Marty avoids the humiliation of staged defeat, only to suffer a far deeper disgrace: being stripped and spanked before the public.
While Marty accuses his mother of sabotaging his pursuits, he is ironically wrecking his own path to stardom. He has the chops to be one of the greats. His orange-ball idea is genuinely innovative and could, under ideal circumstances, have made him a great deal of money. His instinct to use table tennis as a way of capturing the public imagination is genius — something Rockwell tacitly acknowledges by imitating it without fully crediting Marty. When you think about it, Marty never actually has to submit to being spanked or kiss a pig; none of these humiliation rituals are inevitable. It is his own grandiose self-belief that lands him in these less-than-flattering situations.
Marty’s sudden change of heart isn’t convincing. It felt like an inevitable outcome: barred from competing in the World Championship, the least Marty can do is perform concern for his son and for his girlfriend — whom he once passed off as his sister. Here, in contrast to a relatively dark ending in Uncut Gems (2019), Safide gives the viewer something wholesome: a promise that even the most selfish person can change for the better, even if it isn’t entirely convincing. As for Timothée Chalamet, this is his career-best performance. Much of Marty’s rizz is a byproduct of Chalamet’s inherent charm. The film’s true high point, though, is its exquisite opening: sperm in frantic motion, racing toward fertilisation, as Alphaville’s Forever Young drifts in — turning biology into fate, and conception into poetry.
Deepansh Duggal writes on art and culture. He tweets at Deepansh75.