Timothee Chalamet’s weird Instagram live short reviewed

 Is this promo short better than most of this year’s films?

Usually early trailers can be wayward suggesting a film that the movie they are promoting is definitely not but yesterday’s Instagram Live teaser for Marty Supreme might be better than most of this years’ films. It’s certainly odder. You have to watch it at least twice to understand what you’re seeing shot as it was at dusk with a dull sky. All the fuss has been about the full reveal of star Timothee Chalamet’s new shorn barnet but there are a lot of interesting things happening here.

Talk about a sidequest! It could easily be a promo video for some cool rapper. If you’ve not seen it, the ten-minute live piece produced by the film company A24, opens with someone inside a transparent box like the ones they use for lottery balls only its ping pong balls that are being blown about. He is half covered in them initially.  You can’t see who it is though as his entre face is covered by a large spherical ping pong ball or maybe it’s a pumpkin. Perhaps its both. We are close to Halloween after all.  In the gloom it’s hard to tell but it is definitely orange. He's sporting a tracksuit top emblazoned with the name of the film.

The camera then begins to drift sideways passing several other figures, all in the same tracksuits and orange heads playing ping pong on a field. When the picture tracks back, the players leave their tables and the guy in the box is escaping through the side pulling himself out and divesting himself of any errant balls which have lodged in his tracksuit hood. During his escape he is revealed to be Timothee Chalamet sporting a buzzcut and metal rimmed glasses. The whole thing is accompanied by raucous, expletive EDM track whose samples are apparently from the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

He starts to walk away from the box followed by the others eventually breaking into a run that takes him into what looks like a shipping container that’s been decked out to look like a standard interview room with a large poster of the film behind him. Timmy sits down, ties his shoelaces and drinks some water while the music calms down almost to lift music.  and stares at the room for a while until the camera moves forward and finally he speaks. “Marty Supreme is an American film that comes out on Christmas 2025”.  That is the end.

What does it all mean if anything? As a means of getting our attention it’s definitely a success. After all ping pong isn’t exactly a very well - known sport amongst the wider public and the real life inspiration for the film, Marty Reisman, is not a household name. Some watching would no doubt be those who will view every utterance of the movie star, yet the word of mouth on just how weird this is will bring a lot of others. There is a risk though with something so unique that it could obscure the film itself which seems to be a standard drama though the game is a key part of the film. This is ping pong in a different light though.

The mood is menacing albeit you sense its not meant to be taken too seriously. Had it been shot in daylight with a different musical soundtrack a wholly different mood would have been established. However it is fascinating to see someone at this level still willing to play around and do strange things that a lot of other film stars don’t do. Is it good? Yes, it is, in fact it's better than some films I've seen this year because it has surreal imagination and its doing something I've never seen before. It creates a mystique around a film about which you could just say "its about ping pong." 

The actor has previously done bizarre livestreams (for example ten months ago there was something equally bizarre before the release of A Complete Unknown) and seems adept at using multi media to promote his films in a way that he controls. He genuinely seems to enjoy the promotional process by making it as unusual as he can (remember when he turned up at a premiere on a green bycicle?). After all he even showed up to (and amusingly didn’t win) a Timothee Chalamet lookalike competition.

What this short tells us about the film itself is negligible except it’s about ping pong but there is a risk of hyping it up to be something completely removed from what it will likely turn out to be. Though ninety minutes of this would be too much for anyone. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Chalamet is a big enough star now to draw people to his films simply by being in them and the early buzz on Marty Supreme is that it’s a very strong film anyway.  So maybe he just enjoys this sort of thing. I wonder though if they were able to sneak those orange headed players into the actual film…