Marty Mediocre

In the six years since Uncut Gems, Josh Safdie has done nothing. He may have been working on Marty Supreme, his film with Timothée Chalamet, since 2018, but moviegoers don’t know that. Most moviegoers don’t read World of Reel. I’m not sure most people are even aware that the Safdie Brothers “split up,” or which Safdie is which; Benny Safdie is the brother that’s been everywhere this decade, acting in half a dozen prominent films (Oppenheimer, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Stars at Noon, Happy Gilmore 2; he also plays Agamemnon this summer in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey) and co-directing and co-starring with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone in 2023’s HBO miniseries The Curse.

That show was the first significant development in the Safdie aesthetic: besides swapping out a hectic urban environment for a sleepy Southwest town, Fielder and Safdie put extremely long lenses on all the cameras and shot as far away from their actors as possible. There were no dolly shots or flashy zooms in The Curse, ostensibly a send-up of reality shows, and rather than simply ripping off Robert Altman by shooting through parts of the production design, the cameras in The Curse felt like an alien presence, not hostile but definitely not benign. The show’s gonzo ending was spectacular, but the rest of the series, all awkward pauses and miscommunications (deliberate or not), was gripping and hilarious. It was also more evidence that Emma Stone is the premiere American actress of her generation.

Around then, rumors abounded of a harsh split between the Safdies. They were supposed to make another movie with Adam Sandler about baseball card collectors, but that was scrapped a few years ago. Josh and Benny were on good enough terms to pose for a photo the night that Marty Supreme premiered at the New York Film Festival, only a month after Benny’s feature directorial debut, The Smashing Machine, bombed spectacularly and aborted what looked like an inevitable awards campaign for star Dwayne Johnson. I liked The Smashing Machine, but it was below par for both brothers, a perfunctory narrative remake of a documentary of the same name; still, the way it was flushed by A24 so quickly indicated they’re only interested—or able—to support one of the Safdies. It was Josh’s Marty Supreme that got the massive marketing campaign, the Christmas Day release, and a serious push to finally grant Chalamet the Best Actor Oscar he so clearly craves.

Good for him for being open about it. I like Chalamet’s (current) attitude: confident but never arrogant, honest about his ambitions, and his rejection of the anti-social, anti-family mood among many young people (asked about having kids, Chalamet said, “That could be in the mix”). He’s also got great taste in directors and a real understanding of the movie business and what it means to be a movie star. So far, his career is closest to Tom Cruise, who broke out in teen comedies in the early-1980s, started working with auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, and Robert Towne in his mid/late-20s, and solidified his superstar status with mega-hits like Top Gun, Rain Man, and A Few Good Men. He continued his hot streak through his early-30s, appearing successively in Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible, and Jerry Maguire, before joining Stanley Kubrick and then-wife Nicole Kidman for 406 days of shooting Eyes Wide Shut, the longest continuous film production in history.

Kubrick broke Cruise like a horse. He became a much better actor after Eyes Wide Shut, appearing immediately after in Magnolia, Mission: Impossible 2, and Vanilla Sky. What was gone was the often irritating eager-beaver energy of the first part of his career, when he was all smiles and ready for anything. Looking at those 1980s and early-1990s films, you notice how much more Cruise smiles, and smiles wide—he often comes off as false, even annoying. Unfortunately, Chalamet, who turned 30 the day I saw Marty Supreme, is just as eager and even more irritating. I realize I’m in the minority, because he’s the one who turned the movie into a decent hit, but Marty Supreme confirmed two things for me: one, Chalamet is the worst case of a “problem actor” I’ve ever had, someone who just tarnishes, if not ruins, whatever they’re in; two, he’s approaching the age when he could become interesting.

But who will break him? I don’t want Chalamet to suffer, but the grueling and frustrating process of making Eyes Wide Shut drained Cruise and brought out his power. Before, he was always an overgrown boy, like Chalamet, but three years of doing a hundred takes walking through a doorway, or saying “Yes,” made him into a man. Like Chalamet, he’s never been able to disappear into a role or change his appearance without prosthetics (like Adam Driver or Robert De Niro). I don’t need to tell you there aren’t any directors like Stanley Kubrick, nor were there when he was alive, but there must be a filmmaker out there who hasn’t accepted Chalamet and sees something in him that I don’t.

Josh Safdie likes Chalamet just the way he is. Marty Supreme follows Marty Mauser through early-1950s New York, before zipping around the world to Paris, Tokyo, and London. Loosely based on Marty Reisman’s 1974 memoir The Money Player, Chalamet plays a competitive ping pong player willing to do anything to quit his job as a shoe salesman. The film begins in the shoe store, with Marty helping out none other than Mariann from Brooklyn, the sanest member of Howard Stern’s Wack Pack. Besides co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’Zion, and Tyler, the Creator, other notable players include Penn Jillette, Isaac Mizrahi, David Mamet, Fran Drescher, Abel Ferrara, Sandra Bernhard, Ted “The Man with the Golden Voice” Williams, and Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary in a significant supporting role as the film’s primary antagonist. A24 is pushing for Best Supporting Actor Oscar for O’Leary, who’s very entertaining but isn’t blowing anyone away here.

One of O’Leary’s contributions is perhaps the film’s best line. After footing the bill for Marty’s international trips and bids for to become the world champion of table tennis, O’Leary’s no-nonsense Milton Rockwell goes supernatural for a second: “You’re not going to fuck me. I’m a vampire. I was born in 1601. I’ve seen many Marty Mausers and I’ve seen many more.” O’Leary didn’t appreciate that his character got steamrolled by devil-may-care Marty, and his flash of Transylvania inspired a quick rewrite. No dice for the ending: after winning an exhibition match just to embarrass Rockwell, he flies home with the military and meets A’Zion in the hospital. She’s just given birth to their baby, and Marty smiles—exhausted, overwhelmed, but clearly happy. Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” sends us into the credits.

If Marty Supreme came out in 2022 or 2023, maybe I’d feel differently. But this was a massive disappointment after the stunning Uncut Gems, a film that once promised the beginning of a brilliant career, and now feels more and more like a peak neither brother will ever top. Marty Supreme is two and a half hours of YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP, often veering into self-parody, the kinds of impossibly busy scenes full of screaming and hard to discern action that could easily be re-contextualized as Saturday Night Live skits. Chalamet is no help, his star power at odds with the period setting and the dozens of non-actors involved. Chalamet doesn’t become Marty Mauser—he’s begging for that Oscar in every shot. He’s not a bad actor, but he just doesn’t register for me. I hope someone fixes him soon.

But what about Safdie? There’s no doubt he’s a talented filmmaker, but Marty Supreme is total retread of Uncut Gems and Good Time with serious pacing issues. One of the most amazing things about Uncut Gems was how it ratcheted up the tension so patiently and subtly that, without realizing it, you’re having a minor panic attack 45 minutes in. I saw the movie three times and was blown away it had the same physical effect on me each time—it’s a quality that only the best films have. Adam Sandler, who mirrors Chalamet in his lack of ambition, showed the world what a great actor he can be before once again going back to Netflix to make lazy movies with his friends and family. Can’t blame him, but even if the Academy will never accept Sandler, I wish he was still trying. Maybe they’ll make that baseball card movie someday.

Marty Supreme’s pacing is as broken as Uncut Gems’ was brilliant. The movie starts out at 1000 percent and never lets up; cinematographer Darius Khondji struggles to keep up and, using two cameras and hundreds of actors, doesn’t deliver a single memorable image. Safdie’s use of non-professionals and assorted celebrities is also uninspired: Penn Jillette, Abel Ferrara, David Mamet, Fran Drescher, and Sandra Bernhard pass in and out of the movie without making any impression. O’Leary’s good, but he’s essentially recapitulating his Shark Tank persona, and as entertaining as that is, it’s not the menace of Eric Bogosian and the thugs that end up killing him in Uncut Gems. Even more distressing is that no one ever talks about Kevin Durant—I’ve never seen a better performance by an athlete. This wasn’t “stunt casting,” it was the kind of intuition that the best directors have: David Lynch, John Waters, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and Kubrick all use hodgepodge casts featuring current hot-shots, living legends, actors in a rut, retired actors, tabloid stars, even other directors. Often, these “oddballs” break out just as much as the stars. Not the case with Marty Supreme.

Uncut Gems was a virtuoso display on all fronts: structurally, visually, sonically. Daniel Lopatin returns to score Marty Supreme, but like Jonny Greenwood’s score for One Battle After Another, he turns in a maddeningly repetitive and indistinct suite that alternately sounds like autopilot and, again, self-parody. Six years on, Safdie has become a father, and I doubt he’ll pick up the pace; the best we can expect from him is a movie every three or four years. Was it the split that did it? I don’t think so, but considering how badly they fumbled their solo debuts, they should certainly try to make another movie together again. But with the success of Marty Supreme and its inevitable Oscar nominations, I doubt Josh Safdie’s follow-up will be a significant departure, or even something fresh like The Curse. Benny Safdie is busy acting for now, no doubt discouraged by the failure of The Smashing Machine, so who knows when we’ll get another movie from either brother? Unfortunately, it looks like Uncut Gems is as good as it gets from these guys. I hope I’m wrong.

—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NickyOtisSmith