Is ‘Marty Supreme’ a Motivational Sports Movie? It Depends.

All Rocky wanted to do was go the distance against the heavyweight champion of the world; he didn’t care if he won or lost. All the American Samoa football team wanted to do was score one goal after a humiliating defeat at the World Cup.

Sports movies like Rocky or Next Goal Wins are all about overcoming the odds and achieving victory even if that doesn’t necessarily mean you won. Success is in the journey, not the destination.

Marty Supreme is a little different. Marty (Timothée Chalamet) is an underdog in life who never got the memo. He believes wholeheartedly that he is the best table tennis player in the world and, if he loses, it’s because he had been cheated or something wasn’t fair. While he excels at the sport, most people he encounters don’t think much of the talent, or much of a sport itself, considering it more of a leisure activity. They gravitate to his passion though.

“Marty was put on Earth being the best at this thing, better than anybody else on the planet,” co-writer Ronald Bronstein said in a Hollywood Reporter interview. “It just so happens that this thing that he’s the best at sounds so stupid to everybody around him. I was like, ‘Oh, there’s my access point.’ What a great conduit to explore the costs that are associated with a pursuit.”

For a protagonist, Marty isn’t very likeable. He’s selfish, demeaning, overly-confident, cocky, a liar and a narcissist. Somehow, the audience still roots for him. It’s his talent, drive and obsession combined with curiosity on what he will do to get it that makes the viewer want to go on the ride. We applaud his audacity while cringing when he gets in his own way.

Marty is unlike most characters who have appeared in some of the best sports films of all time. While there are a fair share of cocky characters, most have a strong dose of reality dealt to them throughout the film. Characters like Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) in Days of Thunder were hot shots who had to rise up after getting knocked down; part of his arc that built empathy. Marty provides almost no empathy — yet, in spite of his flaws, the audience wants to watch how a complex and amoral character like this claws his way to the top.

Marty’s biggest antagonist is himself.

In 1952, the United States was in a pretty good spot in the world. The U.S. helped win World War II, knocking out fascism and cracking the atomic code in the process. While most of the world was in ruins, the USA had avoided devastation and started building a strong economy.

“I think that the victory of the second world war really set aflame the idea of the American dream. That an individual can change the world. You can be anyone from anywhere and you can find glory and there’s a reason to your existence,” writer/director Josh Safdie said in an interview with The Guardian.

Safdie compared Marty to the United States back then believing he represents the confidence, cockiness and ambition that America expressed in the postwar years. Even the character of Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) was designed to evoke the ruthless American dream, including corporate colonialism and early globalism.

A lot of sports movies will reflect the geopolitics of the time period it represents, even subtly.

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) was a downtrodden boxer who struggled through life. When Rocky was released in 1976, the United States was a bit downtrodden too: skyrocketing inflation, a year out of the Vietnam War, Watergate, gas shortages and more. Rocky worked because it reflected what America looked at during that time and gave hope to the underdog succeeding.

A League of Their Own was another sports film that showed what the world was like based on the characters. They were female baseball players who became part of a league while the men were off fighting the war. This lingers over the entire movie as the ball players experience death, injury and post-war realities regarding their husbands.

In Marty Supreme, it’s not just American confidence within the characters but also what it meant for Japan to reenter the world after defeat and the waning days of Allied occupation. The Japanese were experiencing a travel ban, so to have a player compete in the British Open was a big step for the country at the time. Marty wants to defeat Japan’s top player, and Milton wants to expand his corporate empire into the island nation.

Marty Supreme isn’t the typical inspirational sports movie. Throughout most of the 21st century, filmmakers focused on historical sports figures or teams that had those magical, motivational moments in history: Miracle, The Rookie, 42, Invictus, Nyad, and Race.

Marty Supreme is historical fiction though (granted it is slightly inspired by real life table tennis player Marty Reisman). Still, he can motivate like any other fictional character like Rocky Balboa or Happy Gilmore.

Marty shows the pros and cons of obsession and desire. His means are rarely justifiable but you can’t doubt that he has a goal and will stop at nothing to achieve it. He’s the narcissistic version of Rudy, another character who would do anything to get what he wants.

Safdie believes every character is the hero of their own story. While not every writer will go to the lengths Safdie does with his characters, it’s still important to know who the people are in your story. What do they want? What is their motivation? How can you make them more human?

“I relate to every single character in the movie,” Safdie said in an interview with GQ. “They're all the stars of the film. I write backstories for each person. One-line characters are all the stars of their own film. We're all the stars of our own film.”

Marty Supreme may not inspire audiences in the traditional, feel-good way most sports movies do, but that’s precisely what makes it compelling. Through his arrogance, obsession and relentless drive, the movie explores the costs of ambition and how far people will go to get something they want. It’s a lesson in throwing every possible obstacle and challenge at a protagonist to prevent them from achieving their goal.