Josh Safdie’s first solo directorial offering is a powerfully frantic romp through 1950s America that’ll have you glued from start to finish
Opening in a bustling shoe shop in New York City, 1952, the scene is instantly set for Josh Safdie’s latest offering – the first since he and his co-director brother Benny decided to go their separate ways in 2024. The shots are close, tones earthy, lighting moody and conversation rapid-fire. Based loosely on real-life sportsman and swindler Marty Reisman, the film invites viewers into the world of Marty Mauser, a 23-year-old Jewish Manhattanite who is skinny (Reisman was nicknamed ‘The Needle’ for his slight build), spotty and bespectacled; sporting both a unibrow and thin moustache. His energy is interminably antsy, entitled and, on the whole, entirely unlikeable. Yet, as a viewer, you’re still rooting for him. This is in part down to Safdie and long-term collaborator Ronald Bronstein’s quick-witted writing, but there’s no denying the huge part played by Timothée Chalamet’s jaw-dropping performance. Marty grunts and jitters his way through life, just as he does his matches, and you believe every second of it.
The whole film is a voyeuristic look at our protagonist’s constant search for – and inability to hold onto – cash to fund his calling: table tennis. He’s clearly intelligent and highly talented, but there are two major things standing in his way: a smart mouth and rampant libido. From an urgent fumble in the store room of his uncle’s shop, to a piecemeal affair with a retired Hollywood actor (played masterfully by Gwyneth Paltrow) and myriad hustling jobs gone wrong, Marty makes a sisyphean effort to keep stumbling over his own actions.
Childhood friend and on-and-off lover Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion) is wonderfully multilayered addition. Seemingly fleeing an abusive husband, but remaining headstrong throughout, she never makes a predictable move. Ditto with Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig), Marty’s softly spoken friend and opponent, who is also a Holocaust survivor. In fact, one of the most powerful moments in the film is the depiction of a story he tells from the war, when he smothered himself in honey from a wild beehive and allowed his campmates to lick it off him for sustenance. Like Marty, he is also based on a real-life player, Polish champion Alojzy Ehrlich.
