Marty Supreme, Table Tennis, and the Cost of Gaining the Whole World

“Most of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever.
Everybody wants to rule the world.”
—Tears for Fears

“This is what you want/This is what you get”
—Public Image, Ltd.

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) doesn’t know how to slow down. Slowing down would feel like surrendering, like failure, like a total loss of purpose. He’s here—in this life, in New York City, in the burgeoning economy of 1950s-era United States—to achieve his dreams of being the number one table tennis player in the world, and he won’t rest until he lays claim to that prestigious title. His aspirations are symbolized by the dream of a Wheaties box and a line of orange ping pong balls stamped with his moniker.

But there are so many obstacles to his destiny. Finances are one, as he grabs cash out of his employer’s safe and spends most of the film’s runtime scrounging up enough money to fly to Japan. Other people are another, be it his frustrated mother (Fran Drescher); his friend and occasional sexual partner, Rachel (Odessa A’zion); his uncle Murray (Larry Sloman), aka the employer whose safe he robs; the businessman Kevin O’Leary (Milton Rockwell), whom Marty pitches for a marketing deal; or Koto (Koto Endo), the Japanese player with the best shot at preventing Marty from winning the title. And then there’s just the nature of life, which is chaotic enough.

Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is a severely propulsive film, much like its protagonist. But in addition to the odd twists and stressful turns of the plot, there’s another strange and intriguing facet of Safdie’s film. As the final scene concludes Marty’s arc (with a notable question mark) and the end credits begin to roll, Tears for Fear’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” grows louder and more prominent in the soundtrack. The 1985 pop hit is a rather unexpected choice for a film set in the early ‘50s. Then again, the song declares that’s really what Marty is after, even if table tennis stardom doesn’t seem on the level of world domination. Marty wants it all: the glory, the fame, the press, the wealth. Just so long as he’s impervious to any consequences for his actions.

Chalamet gives the biggest, most all-out performance of his career to date, and it approaches his most skillful. (Perhaps there’s more undercutting subtlety to Lady Bird or Little Women.) He fills Marty’s small frame with a nearly impossible amount of energy and the overconfidence of a man who’s inarguably charming, but nowhere near charming enough for the sheer levels of turmoil that he unleashes on everyone around him. Marty is a particularly American creature who can proclaim that he’s “uniquely positioned” to be the new face of table tennis with no trace of irony and dismiss Rachel’s concerns by telling her “everything in my life is falling apart right now, but I’ll figure it out.” In his own eyes, he’s a dreamer, a competitor, the self-righteous receiver of destiny (no less than his Paul in Dune). To others, though, he’s just a “big boy,” or “one entitled American.” The American Dream is as real and immediate to Marty as the lives of his family; unfortunately for him, it’s also as flimsy as the cardboard of a Wheaties box.

So by the time Curt Smith’s voice belts “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” at the film’s end, we read it as a clarion thematic judgment on Marty, in spite of its anachronism. (Nor is it the only ‘80s song Safdie laces into the film: “Forever Young” accompanies the title credits, and New Order, Public Image Ltd., Peter Gabriel, and The Korgis all make appearances.) Marty portrays himself as absolutely certain of his destiny, but the legacy created in the wake of his actions is up for debate. Safdie uses the anachronistic half of the soundtrack in a distinct manner, as a non-diegetic commentary on the film’s central ego. Marty wants to rule the world, and he’ll get what he wants, as likely as not. But he might not be ready to count the cost. 

1980s pop isn’t the only reference point that invites interrogation, however, as Marty Supreme is flooded with biblical allusions. These are easy to overlook initially, but as they accumulate, they compose a similar commentary on this man’s aspirations. Marty, along with many of the people around him, is Jewish, and he’s navigating both the tragedy of the Holocaust and the expansive opportunities of 1950s New York. After making bad-taste comments about the Shoah, he attempts to counterbalance by calling himself “Hitler’s worst nightmare.” Being Jewish is just as central to Marty’s character as being American; the historical knowledge of a chosen people facing repeated suffering intertwines with an ahistorical sense of individuality that leads him to believe he can pull himself up by the bootstraps—all the way into the stratosphere.

The disconnect is sharply observed when Marty, on the phone with movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), exhorts her to look at the newspaper proclaiming him as “The Chosen One”—except he neglects to mention that the headline sticks a striking question mark at the end. Perhaps Marty is a messiah figure, the new face of table tennis and a new public representative of Judaism—he certainly sees himself that way. Or maybe he’s all bluster, reaping the whirlwind. Then there’s Rachel, whose name conjures a triangular strife and a figure who’s just as willing to dabble in deceit as the men around her. At one point, Marty passes off Rachel (whom he has likely impregnated, though he denies it) as his sister in order to get a secure place to stay, mirroring Abraham’s lie. In another tangled thread of the story, Marty finds himself with a dog named Moses, who just might represent his ticket to the promised land—that is, the table tennis championships in Japan.

Allusions to the Hebrew Bible abound, but Marty’s journey is not that of a person trusting God to bring him to the promised land. Instead, Marty insists on doing everything his own way and by his own energy, oblivious to the needs of every single person around him. Marty’s a hustler, a liar, an egomaniac. With a paddle in hand, he does have greatness, but he allows that greatness to delude his sense of himself. In these ways, Marty’s journey stretches across the testaments and finds its terminus in Jesus’ question: “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” The costs pile up for those around him: for Rachel and his family, for Kay and Koto. And for Marty, though he constantly shuffles them off of his shoulders, trying his best to avert his gaze from everything he’s forfeiting. Marty manifests Jesus’ warning: There’s a lot to be gained in this world as we pursue wealth and prestige, but can one reconcile the cost?

Cowriters Safdie and Ronald Bronstein ultimately leave that headline’s question mark in place. The film provides clear commentary—courtesy of its ‘80s pop soundtrack and biblical allusions—but it doesn’t offer definitive answers. It leaves us, instead, to continue wrestling with that question. How far will we go, and with what blinded determination, to achieve our dreams? What will be the cost of obtaining all we desire? Will we even have eyes to witness the cost? We just might get what we want. But nothing ever lasts forever.