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Or, perhaps, this might be better stated “Timothée Chalamet Supreme.” 

The film is yet another triumph of this young actor’s performance skills, his investment in his art and the result of placing that burning talent in the middle of an ensemble of actors who help create a driving, pulsing cinematic sleigh ride. OSCAR buzz?  Absolutely.

It takes a long time for the whisper of an idea to end up on the big screen. From “What about this…?” to house lights down in your local cinema is a journey, the details of which we’ll spare you in order to focus on the “boulder in a landslide” effect of Chalamet’s portrayal of Marty Mauser, a character loosely based on table tennis hustler Marty Reisman.

It’s reported that when Josh Safdie, director and co-script writer of the film, approached friend Chalamet with the idea of basing a film on the turbulent life of Reisman, Chalamet did not hesitate. He started taking intense table tennis coaching in order to take his truly amateur game to heroic professional, filmable standards. Much like his years of guitar and harmonica preparation to become Bob Dylan in the stunning A Complete Unknown, Chalamet spent six years before he was ready to inhabit the fictionalized life of the New York world champion/world class hustler who seemed to emerge from every self-induced crisis to be stronger.

Marty Supreme is an intense film in the sense that Safdie not only stages the intense action scenes with an almost claustrophobic intimacy but then edits the sequences to evoke the highest possible adrenaline response. Rather than being exhausting, the effect is exhilarating. Watching the rapid-fire physical exertion required to play “ping-pong” at the highest international levels becomes as magnetic as watching championship NHL hockey or professional volleyball. The action doesn’t stop until one side finds that fraction of a second when a winning shot can prevail.

The supporting cast does a masterful job of crafting their own distinct characters while allowing Chalamet’s nuclear performance to remain at the heart of the film. Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone emerges as the fading star who is physically drawn into Marty Mauser’s relentlessly swirling life and allows Mauser access to her too rich, too arrogant husband, pen magnate Milton Rockwell, played with narcissistic elegance by Shark Tank alumnus Kevin O’Leary. It’s been decades since Paltrow picked up her OSCAR for Shakespeare In Love and her EMMY for Glee, but her on screen luminance has not faded. O’Leary may have no formal acting credits, but he personifies the mega-millionaire who builds a career by being aloof and, at times, brutal.

The appearance of Koto Kawaguchi as Japanese table tennis champion Koto Endo is a masterful touch, made more profound in that Kawaguchi has won international fame as a deaf champion who plays the game under sponsorship from Toyota. The match footage pits Chalamet against Kawaguchi, not stunt doubles, and the choreography is breath taking.  

For those who revel in the game of identifying actors who we “know from somewhere … I just can’t think of where …” the proliferation of supporting cast members who are magically assembled for the film is significant. Playwright David Mamet appears as do Penn Jillete, Isaac Mizrahi, Sandra Bernhard, and Fran Drescher, among others. Odessa A’Zion appears at the beginning of the film as Marty’s clandestine love interest and carries her storm-tossed role through the manic hijinks, the life-threatening chases and concluding climactic moments with a Brooklyn infused anger and energy that plays perfect counterpoint to Chalamet’s portrayal of the driven kid from the streets who refuses to look back, let alone side to side.

It may have taken many years to start with the story of a deeply flawed, but truly talented athlete who was a master of a game that for most is relegated to the basement to be played on rainy afternoons and turn it into a complex, driven study of the dark under side of success, but the time, the effort and the journey are well worth the investment of a few hours of our time.