Timothée Chalamet, the sociopath you'll love to hate

I'm not sure if, as Paul Schrader states, Marty Supreme and The mastermind by Kelly Reichardt They are the same film played at different speeds. But it does seem clear that their protagonists are cut from the same cloth: two sociopaths who wander the world convinced they are destined for a greatness incompatible with everyday life, and who embark on selfish crusades with catastrophic consequences. This psychological profile is not at all coincidental with the fact that the Marty Mauser embodied by Timothée Chalamet—with glasses, a little mustache, and electric gestures—is also a clear exponent of American exceptionalism; he demonstrates this every time he tries to convince his interlocutors that he deserves special treatment and that his presence as an American elevates the world ping-pong championships.

Sport is the MacGuffin that defines the zigzag trajectory of the (inadvertently) ridiculous man who is the focus of Josh Safdie's first solo film, a coherent continuation of the headlong flights of fancy that he and his brother Benny had embarked on in Daddy Longlegs, Good time and Rough diamonds. Marty Supreme It maintains the filmmaker's characteristic energy, replacing contemporary chronicle with a portrait of a bygone era in New York (mid-20th century, when nations defeated in World War II still aroused suspicion, but not enough to prevent business dealings) where the futuristic echoes of Daniel Lopat Feares' electronica resonate. This anachronistic audacity seems to underscore the timelessness of a story that, through the concrete details of Chalamet's character's journey and those he drags into the abyss, ultimately paints a portrait of a society perpetually captivated by the charisma of eccentrics with a penchant for flirtation.