Overview
- Josh Safdie’s high-energy ‘faux’ biopic, starring Timothée Chalamet, hit French cinemas on February 18 to broadly positive notices highlighting its nervy direction and kinetic craft.
- The film counts nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director and Actor, with Chalamet also coming off Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice wins for his performance.
- A24’s large-scale campaign has helped turn the movie into a mainstream event, with TF1 Info reporting roughly $150 million worldwide and $95 million in the U.S., the studio’s biggest success to date.
- Chalamet trained for years to play at a professional level, as the production mixed meticulous choreography and selective VFX to render table tennis as cinematic spectacle.
- France’s table tennis community reports a surge of interest around the release, with the national federation and clubs launching outreach and events to capture a hoped-for “Marty effect.”