On Screen: “Marty Supreme”

Marty Supreme

Set in 1952, “Marty Supreme” revolves around cocky ping-pong prodigy Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet), an obnoxious, self-serving, self-confident con man whose reckless schemes propel him far from his Lower East Side New York roots, much to the chagrin of his mother (Fran Drescher).

Problem is: In the United States, table tennis champions don’t make money, so Marty must sell shoes in his Uncle Murray’s (Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman) store, where he has sex in the stockroom with his childhood sweetheart Rachel (Odessa A’zion), who is married to unsuspecting Ira (Emory Cohen).

But Murray disappears when Marty tries to collect his salary to buy a ticket to London to compete in a tournament, so Marty takes matters into his own hands, with the help of his best pal, taxi driver Wally (Tyler Okonma aka Rapper Tyler, The Creator). Consequences follow in due course.

But first — Marty not only talks his way into luxurious accommodations at the Ritz but also wheedles his way into bed with icy trophy wife Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a former 1930s movie star, catching the attention of her pen-magnate husband, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank”).

After Marty loses to Japanese champion Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), Rockwell proposes a promotional rematch in Japan, which doesn’t exactly go as planned, so frenzied Marty does halftime shows with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Meanwhile, plucky, heavily pregnant Rachel reappears, informing Marty of his impending fatherhood, and there’s a chaotic — if irrelevant — sequence involving a crook named Ezra Mushkin (Abel Ferrara) and his beloved dog.

Directed by Josh Safdie (“Uncut Gens”), who wrote the irreverent, R-rated script with Ronald Bronstein, it’s a freely fictional character study, loosely based on the outrageous, adrenaline-propelled antics of the real Marty whose name was Reisman, not Mauser, who gambled, losing fortunes, only to win them back.

Kudos to production designer Jack Fisk’s authentic aesthetics and to cinematographer Darius Khondji’s meticulously textured visuals.