A table tennis player (Timothée Chalamet) in 1952 goes from zero to sub-zero in this sports comedy/drama they should have called Raging Balls.

Marty Supreme sees director Josh Safdie and writer Ronald Bronstein attempt to recapture the lightning in an opal bottle that was Uncut Gems, but largely misses the mark with their offbeat brand of humiliation comedy. In the 2019 movie, Adam Sandler’s character struck the right balance of likeable and buffoonish to enjoy spending time in his company while also witnessing his misfortune. But Marty (loosely based on real table tennis champion Martin Reisman) never really shows any redeeming cracks in his set of narcissistic and unpleasant characteristics.

This makes it hard to get particularly worked up in his quest for paddle-based world domination, and it becomes increasingly arduous to spend two and a half hours watching him ping-pong between unfortunate events. And where Uncut Gems had its share of outrageous incidents, they were largely grounded in reality and stressfully contained in the space of a week. Here the months-long ordeal stretches both plausibility and patience, as Marty bounces around endangering animals and the people closest to him, with the cumulative effect on the viewer of being repeatedly struck in the head by a ping-pong ball.

That said it is brilliantly made, sporting kinetic direction and flawless cinematography, even if the anachronistic ’80s soundtrack leaves something to be desired. The oddball cast (including Gwyneth Paltrow and Abel Ferrara) serve supreme performances across the board, and Chalamet’s arse-bearing turn is likely to net him an Oscar. But the film never explains how he got and remains so good at table tennis (there is no Rocky-style training montage where he practices hitting rocks over a fence), while on a dramatic level, an American narcissist attempting to defeat his disabled Japanese rival (Koto Kawaguchi) falls short of table stakes.

Credit to Safdie though for making an Oscar-nominated movie about such an inherently uncinematic sport. The only project more audacious would be remaking Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling drama Over the Top. If you see Timothée Chalamet walking around with one massive arm, that could be among the reasons why.