Timothée Chalamet has been acting a bit strangely lately. It started last year, when he won the SAG Award for A Complete Unknown and said in his acceptance speech that he wasn’t just aiming to be good, but wanted to be one of the all-time greats. This behavior continued during his press tour for Josh Safdie’s ping pong odyssey, Marty Supreme. “I’m doing top-level shit,” he said during one interview. “It’s been seven, eight years I’ve been handing in top-of-the-line performances.”

There is something off-putting about this level of bravado and ambition especially when it’s applied to an art form which isn’t—or at least shouldn’t be—about scoring wins and besting your competition. On the other hand, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was kind of refreshing, too. False humility is as bad—hell, it’s worse—than Chalamet’s WWE-style boasting. The actors who pretend to rise above it all, the ones who say, “Oh gosh, I didn’t even realize I got an Oscar nomination; I was in my garden when I got the call from my manager”—truly work my nerves. (Girl, please. You were glued to your TV surrounded by your publicist, your dietician, and your glam squad.)

That said, at some point, I began to wonder if what Chalamet was doing was merely schtick. He’s proven himself to be an incredible self-promoter—remember when he turned up to the Timothée Chalamet Look-a-Like Contest? (He lost.) Could all of this bragging and grandstanding be some sort of meta promotion for the film? Might he be the first actor to take The Method all the way through the press tour?

I think the answer is yes and no—which is possibly what makes Chalamet the perfect actor to depict Josh Safdie’s patented brand of manic New York city hustler.

In a way, Chalamet has always been this nervy, hopped up kid from Manhattan. He’s street smart, like all New York kids (yes, even the privileged ones) and he absorbed a lot of New York hustle culture, which is all about perpetual motion and grandstanding and faking it till you make it.

This is Josh Safdie’s first film made separately from his brother, Benny (who made some waves of his own this year with the more conventional sports biopic, The Smashing Machine) but it feels exactly like the brothers’ early work, Good Time and Uncut Gems.

Those films were about strivers and con artists who were also kind of losers. In my capsule review of Uncut Gems, in which Adam Sandler plays a diamond broker who is addicted to gambling, I said: “It’s honestly a nightmare—a nervous breakdown of a movie that never allows you to catch your breath….The Safdie brothers film [Sandler] like a shark that needs to keep moving to survive.”

I honestly could have cut and pasted that review for Marty Supreme, but there are a couple of key differences. For one, it takes place in post-war Manhattan, beautifully and painstakingly recreated by master production designer Jack Fisk. And Marty Mauser (loosely based on real ping-pong legend, Marty Reisman) actually is talented. He is one of the best ping pong players in the world, if not the very best, as he’ll tell anyone within earshot.

When the film starts, he’s peddling loafers and pumps at his uncle’s shoe store. Of course, he’s a good sales person, too—he knows how to lay on the charm. His uncle just wants to promote Marty to manager and be done with it, but Marty explains that he’s only working there to raise money to compete in the upcoming British Open. Marty’s mother (Fran Drescher) also wants him to stop pursuing this ridiculous table tennis dream and settle down like a normal Jewish son. She keeps faking a debilitating illness over the phone in an attempt to get him to come home from whatever tournament he’s playing in. (You can’t con a conman—he never buys it.)

Marty has a girlfriend, of sorts, named Rachel (Odessa A’zion), who is married to a dullard named Ira (Emory Cohen). In the first scene, she and Marty have a quickie in the supply closet and she gets pregnant—a detail that will animate much of the film.

Marty never has enough money to get where he wants, he’s always scheming and stealing and hustling—but he’s monomaniacal. It’s all about ping pong. Even sex and love are secondary to the game he’s obsessed with. (When Rachel tells him she’s pregnant he makes it clear he wants no part of raising a kid.)

I never thought I’d be writing this phrase, but I wish the film had even more ping-pong scenes. Whether he’s at a tournament or hustling some backroom players in a bowling alley with his buddy Wally (Tyler the Creator)—it’s a joy to watch Marty play. Ping-pong players are marvels of speed, hand-eye coordination, and leaping ability and when Marty’s on his game, it’s electrifying. (After months of rigorous training, Chalamet performed all the table tennis scenes himself, without a body double. Top level shit, you might say.) Marty is obnoxious, of course, when he plays—shouting, cursing, crowing—but he’s gracious when he wins, which is most of the time, wrapping his opponent in a bear hug. However, at the London Open, he finally meets his match, a steely-eyed Japanese player named Koto Endo (Koto Kowaguchi) who surprises Marty with his thickly foamed paddle and lightning fast reflexes. (Unsurprisingly, Marty is also a menace when he loses, cursing at the refs and falsely calling out Endo for cheating.)

While in London, staying at a fancy hotel he can’t afford (he charged it to the International Tennis Table Federation, against their express objections), he lays eyes on aging movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) who’s in town to do a play, and decides to pursue her, just because. He does so with the same dogged determination and unearned confidence with which he does everything else. Somehow it works and they become lovers.

Kay is married to a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell, played by Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame. (I confess I spent the entire film trying to figure out what movies I’d seen this excellent actor in before—was he in The Irishman? A season of The White Lotus? It was a bit of a head slapper when I finally googled him.) Rockwell offers to sponsor Marty but he’s the kind of man who likes to lord his wealth and privilege over the little guy—and he’s a sadist, as he proves in one particularly memorable scene.

One of the other major plot points involves a gangster’s German Shepherd that Marty has somehow managed to lose—and it’s not clear who will kill Marty first, the dog, the dog’s new gun-toting farmer owner (Penn Jillette, in an amusing cameo), or the gangster himself.

Some have argued that Marty is an asshole and that his quasi-redemption at the end of the film is unearned, but I don’t see it that way. I think Marty is part asshole, part mensch (classic example: He steals a chunk of an Egyptian pyramid…to give to his mother as a gift). His Jewish family, still traumatized by the Holocaust, has lots of love and lots of tsuris—just like Marty himself. Note how Marty always offers a sincere “I love you,” as he rushes out of any room.

In case I wasn’t clear above, Chalamet is fantastic in this role. It may very well be his best work yet, in a career filled with excellent performances. You could make the case that Safdie’s film allowed him to evolve into his purest form—the antsy, quicksilver street hustler who was in there all along.

“I feel like the gift of my life is to focus on this acting thing the way Marty Mauser is locked in on ping pong,” he recently told Vanity Fair.

Mission accomplished, Timothée. Mission accomplished.

Perry Bamonte, guitarist and keyboardist for the Cure, has died. He was 65.

The band announced on its website on Dec. 26 that Bamonte died “after a short illness at home over Christmas.”

“Quiet, intense, intuitive constant and hugely creative, ‘Teddy’ was a warm hearted and vital part of the Cure story,” the band said.

The London-born Bamonte began touring with the Cure as a guitar tech and assistant in 1984, then joined the band full-time in 1990. He performed over 400 shows with the group and recorded on the albums “Wish,” “Wild Mood Swings,” “Bloodflowers,” “Acoustic Hits” and “The Cure.”

Bamonte parted ways with the Cure after 14 years, later performing with the group Love Amongst Ruin. He returned to the Cure in 2022 for “another 90 shows, some of the best in the band’s history,” the group said, including the Nov. 1, 2024, London show documented on the concert film “The Show of a Lost World.”

As a member of the Cure, Bamonte was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The band is still scheduled for a run of European festivals and headline shows in 2026.

“Our thoughts and condolences are with all his family,” the group said. “He will be missed.”

The Housemaid, 2025.

Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Ellen Tamaki, Megan Ferguson, Brian D. Cohen, Indiana Elle, Amanda Joy Erickson, Don DiPetta, Alexandra Seal, Sophia Bunnell, Lamar Baucom-Slaughter and Arabella Olivia Clark.

SYNOPSIS:

A struggling woman is happy to start over as a housemaid for an affluent, elite couple.

Whether or not one has read the recently published book by Freida McFadden, there is no question where director Paul Feig’s The Housemaid (adapted from Rebecca Sonnenshine’s screenplay) is headed. He is, first and foremost, a feminist filmmaker (absolutely not a bad thing), and there are certain predictable but vital modern-day storytelling trends. That’s not a fault here, but it is damn near maddening how long the film wears a mask before arriving at that turning point. Even while acknowledging quite a few clever bits of foreshadowing with a dash of welcome class commentary and themes surrounding gossip and how much of it should be taken credibly, the first half of this narrative doesn’t need to go on for roughly an hour with failed attempts at misdirection.

That the second half of The Housemaid, which lays out the details behind the obvious and fully embraces its trashiness with a sprinkling of truly sinister behavior, is as intense as it is, only makes the shortcomings more frustrating. When the specific “whys” of what is happening here are given to the audience, all that’s left is white-knuckle suspense that could go in multiple directions, with either an optimistic or tragic climax. For whatever reason, the journey to that turn is sometimes a slog – generally only salvaged by its trio of outstanding performances leaning into the campiness – that seemingly assumes its audience has never read a trashy paperback airport novel or seen a thriller.

Despite the predictability of some elements, one still doesn’t want to dive too deeply into the synopsis. Nevertheless, it involves Sydney Sweeney’s Millie, a woman on parole for an undisclosed crime desperately seeking employment to stay on the outside, even if it means telling white lies to hopefully get hired as a live-in housemaid. A meeting for such a position with Amanda Seyfried’s Nina goes as well as she could hope for. Still, in the back of her mind, she believes the resume will be scanned for its dishonesty, costing her the job opportunity.

It goes without saying that Millie gets the job and begins working for Nina, given an attic for a bedroom (which suspiciously has a deadbolt on the door and a window that no longer opens), and basic housework duties such as cleaning, cooking, and looking after the rude young daughter Cecelia (Indiana Elle), who has clearly gotten a bit too comfortable with such a privileged life. Now, there have been some traumatizing hardships as more is gradually revealed about Nina’s past and some actions as a mother. Nina also shows signs of schizophrenia immediately after giving Millie the position, repeatedly and frequently scolding her for doing what was asked, while insisting that she never requested that.

Fortunately, Nina’s husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar, taking a page out of the Glen Powell charming playbook, but with sides to the performance the latter would struggle to pull off) witnesses much of the crashouts and mistreatment toward Millie for no justifiable reason, offering some support, peace, and stability. Unsurprisingly, Millie still wants to find another job and get the hell out of there.

As mentioned, Millie is also played by Sydney Sweeney. Hence, it makes sense that Nina, who is already spiraling and paranoid, would warn her not to make any passes or advances towards Andrew. That’s also where the film starts to fall apart in terms of logic, as no one in their right mind would hire this particular woman to be a housemaid if that insecurity or fear for potential adultery were there, especially after the background check on the resume raises several red flags. Nina’s behavior is also so erratic, temperamental, and hostile that one wonders why someone like Andrew is typically calm, still around, and always so quick to forgive her and downplay the severity of it all.

A lot is happening here regarding the character dynamics that doesn’t make any sense, which is also part of the point since we know there are ulterior motives at play. To sit with such illogical behavior for roughly an hour, while also knowing where this is ultimately going, is downright annoying. The viewer is in a constant state of knowing what’s up while ticked off, waiting for the specifics to come into play and the genre to shift for far too long. Then, The Housemaid starts doing what it should have done a while ago, becoming a genuine thrill ride in the process. It’s a film that admittedly does fire on all cylinders once the puzzle pieces fall into place.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist