Description

This week on Bad Dads Film Review, we review Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein’s A24 sports-hustle drama starring Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a table-tennis prodigy with Olympic-level confidence and almost no visible concern for anyone else.

Only Dan and Chris have done the homework this week, leaving Sidey and Reegs to interrogate them on the plot, the tone, the ping-pong, the Gwyneth Paltrow of it all, and whether Chalamet can truly carry a film when he still looks like a haunted Victorian child who has discovered hair product.

Along the way we discuss:

• Chris failing to return from Romania with the promised contraband
• parents discovering IMAX and immediately wanting a monthly cinema club
• the Safdie brothers going their separate ways, with Josh Safdie on this and Benny Safdie off with The Rock
• Marty working in a shoe shop but dreaming of table-tennis glory
• a sperm-and-egg title sequence that nobody had quite expected
• Marty robbing the family business while trying to frame it as sensible career planning
• London tournaments, The Ritz and the ping-pong federation
• Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone, a famous actress in a loveless marriage
• Endo, the terrifying Japanese player with the modern grip and superior paddle
• whether the table-tennis sequences are CGI, doubles or just very committed editing
• orange ping-pong balls, champagne bills and Marty’s endless self-mythologising
• a hotel bath falling through the ceiling
• Moses the gangster dog
• Harlem Globetrotters-style ping-pong tricks
• Marty getting to Japan, losing an exhibition match, refusing to kiss a pig, and demanding one more game
• whether achieving your dream means anything if you have used everyone around you to get there

The big question: is Marty a brilliant, driven outsider, or just a selfish arsehole with a paddle?

Dan finds the character so unpleasant that it limits his enjoyment, even while acknowledging the film is very well made. Chris is more taken with the craft, the period detail, the tension and the way the film keeps moving despite its hefty runtime. Reegs hears shades of The Karate Kid, White Men Can’t Jump and Uncut Gems, while Sidey remains deeply suspicious of Timothée Chalamet’s pixie leading-man energy.

Verdicts: Chris is on a strong recommend, Dan is somewhere between mid and strong recommend, and Sidey and Reegs are officially TBC.

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