Nico: The way I watched “Marty Supreme” is how I recommend you all watch it: at AMC with two friends (including my co-author). We tried to buy tickets online, but the transaction didn’t go through, so we ended up sitting at the front of the theater, staring right up Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow’s nostrils. Trying to escape this awkward angle, naturally, we sat in seats that weren’t ours until their rightful owners arrived, displacing us to various empty seats around the theater. In the end, I sat alone in a packed AMC. I am a very socially anxious person, but “Marty Supreme” was compelling enough for me to physically react as I would alone at home, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t emit a few gasps. Here are things I loved about this movie and the reasons why I think it is 100% worth going to a theater to see: the casting, which is strange and full of non-actors but works perfectly; the score, which everyone has talked about but which makes this movie a very different experience; the colors—most notably orange; and the fact that nobody in this movie, especially Chalamet, acts like it’s the 1950s, which requires us to fully suspend our disbelief. When exiting the theater, I truly felt those two-and-a-half hours that I could not get back (in a good way!). That’s not to say this movie drags; you just really feel how long it is.
Eli: I loved all the things Nico loved about this movie. I just had one critique, and it’s a big one–Chalamet’s shallow portrayal of Marty Mauser. Ferris Bueller is a dick, and that’s okay, but Matthew Broderick’s portrayal of Ferris turns him into someone you can’t help but love. Chalamet doesn’t do that for Marty’s dickish behavior. Instead, his flat performance combined with his guerrilla marketing campaign, leaves me wondering where Chalamet ends and Marty begins. I came into this film with my own bias. I have enjoyed Chalamet’s acting in literally everything I have ever seen him in, from “Wonka” to “Call Me by Your Name.” But in this film, modern-day Chalamet overpowered the character. There’s a scene when someone asks Marty if he’d like coffee, and he says something along the lines of “No, thank you, I’m not drinking caffeine.” The delivery of that line epitomizes my problem with Chalamet’s performance in the movie: he literally sounds like he was sitting in a Starbucks and ordering a refresher. Not only does he sound and act extremely modern, but Mauser’s character progression is extremely flat. Only until the final scene do we see any ounce of change in Marty’s/Chalamet’s emotional palette. I would have 10/10 loved this movie if Marty was played by an unknown, fresh on the scene, debut-movie actor. But unfortunately, Chalamet’s performance kept me from feeling fully immersed in the universe of “Marty Supreme.”
This article also appears in our January 2026 print edition.
