The Winner Takes it All
First of all, happy 2026!!! I hope everyone has been having a wonderful new year so far- I personally have. I’ve been moving into my new apartment, savoring my last official days as a Fantasyland princess, and appreciating every day as it comes. I’ve been trying to keep a busy and organized schedule, and part of that (and one of my little resolutions for the year) is making time to use my AMC A-List membership. This year, I’m hoping to go to the theater to watch a new movie at least once a week.
So, last night, my friend Victoria and I did our favorite thing- we met up at the AMC at Disney Springs after work, and we watched a movie. We watched Marty Supreme. It was a fantastic, phenomenal movie, and I just wanted to talk about it!
Marty Supreme is a movie set in 1952, mainly in New York, starring Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’Zion, and so many other people. In it, Timothee plays Marty Mauser, a shoe salesman at his uncle’s shop with a penchant for table tennis. As I write this now, I realize that the name ping pong (an insulting one, according to the film) comes from the ping-ponging sound the ball makes when it bounces off the rackets and tables. The more you know. Anyway, Marty is working at his uncle’s shop to save money for a flight to London to compete in the British Table Tennis Open, hoping to become the first American champion. From the moment we meet him, Marty is driven, relentless, charismatic, and proud. He believes in nothing but his greatness. He is set in his mind that he deserves to be a champion, that the world deserves him as a champion. He has a calling, a reason for existence, and that reason is table tennis.
Unfortunately, it’s 1952 in New York, and he’s broke.
He robs his uncle of the money he’s owed after not having received it, and he jets off to London, when he loses. Throughout the way, he hobnobs with snobs and hits on movie stars and boasts loudly and proudly about his one true purpose in life- becoming the greatest. Marty never accepts failure as a concept. When Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, a former Hollywood legend he begins an affair with in order to internally validate himself as important, asks him what he would do if his dreams don’t work out, he responds back, quickly, abrasively, and honestly, "That doesn't even enter my consciousness." She finds it charming and annoying, as does everyone that Marty rings dry for money and opportunity. Everything he does is to get himself closer to his goals and his dreams. Abandoning his job, his mother, his childhood best friend/future mother of his child, his business partner, his friends. It’s all for the love of the game. It’s all to be a winner.
When you have a dream, you have to make sacrifices to make it happen. You have to put in the work, you have to have the drive, the determination. Marty has more than that; he has hunger, he has a necessity, he has an addiction. It doesn’t matter who he hurts or crushes or leaves or whose dog he steals, because all of it is happening not because he wants it to, but because it has to, in order for him to prove himself. When he’s talking to Rachel, Odessa A’Zion’s character (who is pregnant with his baby), Marty says to her,
"I have a purpose. And if you think that's some sort of blessing, it's not. It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through, and with that obligation comes sacrifice."
He’s not just telling her. He’s convincing her. He’s manipulating her, as he does to everyone around him. Even when he’s on his hands and knees, groveling to the highest degree for loose change or a bed to sleep on, it’s serving him a purpose, It’s getting him to the next step by forcing pity on those he’s groveling for. It’s intentional. It’s humiliating, it’s dehumanizing, it’s embarrassing, yes, but in the end none of it will matter. The only thing that matters is that in the end, he will come out the winner. For lack of a better phrase, he is burdened with glorious purpose.
Marty really, truly, believes it. He believes in his superiority. He believes he is more important than the average person. Marty believes he was put on this earth to become a table tennis champion. He believes it is what is supposed to happen, and he needs to make it happen, because that is the only truth, the only explicable and understood thing. It’s law.
It makes him rude, and manipulative, and nasty, and deceitful. He isn’t a good person. He goes too far. He always goes to far. Marty does whatever he needs to do in order to serve his purpose. Me, personally, I wasn’t really rooting for him. An anti-hero of sorts- unlikable but compelling, I read online somewhere, he isn’t someone that necessarily deserves to fulfill his dream to become a table tennis champion. Instead, he’s someone who deserves to understand and appreciate and breathe and live. It’s his fault, and it isn’t his fault. He reframes his priorities towards the end of the movie. He proves to himself that he can be a champion, and in the end, that’s really all he ever needed. He didn’t need the world to see him, he needed to see himself. He’s happy and proud and scared and he goes home to Rachel- and their baby. And he’s happy. Marty screwed up countlessly, screwed everyone over relentlessly. None of it is absolved. But it doesn’t exactly matter, at least, not to Marty. All that matters is his purpose is served. And now he can rest.
Timothee Chalamet gave an incredible performance. He was honest and captivating, and truly is the shining star of the film. It would not be so much without him. I think often about the speech he gave at the 2025 SAG Awards, where he became the youngest person to win Best Male Actor in the award show’s history, where he said,
“I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.”
I think Timothee Chalamet is, if not already, one of the greats. I haven’t seen much else in his filmography, and maybe that’s something I will try and get around to doing this year, but from this one movie, I will believe it confidently and proudly, that he is one of the greats.
On other notes, the soundtrack was brilliant- and though my first thought at the final scene was ‘it’s 1952, why is Tears for Fears playing,’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World was the perfect choice to represent Marty as a character. The costuming was very of-the-time, especially the bowling alley scene in New Jersey- that felt so very 1950s. The entire cast did amazing. It was truly a great movie.
I gave it 4 1/2 stars in my Letterboxd review, where I’ve decided to start leaving more detailed reviews this year, so I have a true journal to look back on, as another sort of resolution of mine is to consume media more intently, and earnestly. I’ll attach my review here. I hope 2026 is a magical year for you, and I hope more than anything, that you find yourself in a movie theater this year.
xoxo, Willianny
