Josh Safdie: King of Chaos

 

Uncut Gems by the Safdie brothers (Josh and Benny) is not just one of my all time favorite movies: it’s a masterpiece that crystallizes the evolution of high intensity narrative cinema. The Safdies are undeniable heirs to the strident, visceral dynamism of Martin Scorsese, that absolute master of narrative vertigo who has marked entire generations of filmmakers. It’s no coincidence that Scorsese is the filmmaker with the greatest influence on modern cinema, a titan whose shadow looms over every director who understands rhythm as a heartbeat and adrenaline as a highly addictive cinematic substance.

Caught Stealing recently surprised us with Darren Aronofsky paying an explicit and reverential tribute to Martin Scorsese, proving that this sacred genealogy of controlled chaos remains alive, pulsing, and more relevant than ever. Now it’s Josh Safdie’s turn, this time separated from his brother Benny in a bold experiment that walks with supreme elegance between potential disaster and absolute triumph.

Curiously, Benny tried to create his own version of Aronofsky’s The Wrestler with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Smashing Machine, yet he failed to surpass the devastating emotional intensity of the original film. How do you top Mickey Rourke in a role that practically redefined what self destruction means on screen? The answer is simple and painful: you can’t. Rourke has been in a pitiful process of self destruction for several decades, Aronofsky captured it and exploited it to the fullest. Johnson hasn’t lived that experience.

However, Josh Safdie didn’t want to stray from the enormous influence of the Scorsese universe or from the Coen brothers, whom he so masterfully explored alongside Benny in Good Time and Uncut Gems. That claustrophobic atmosphere of constant tension, of wrong decisions chaining together like dominoes of disaster, of deeply self destructive characters navigating merciless worlds that won’t forgive a single mistake.

This time, Josh draws direct inspiration from Uncut Gems and once again takes colossal creative risks, expanding his visual and narrative language to unsuspected limits. He transforms us into completely immersed observers of an experience as brutal as it is hypnotic, where we can’t look away even when we desperately want to. The music by Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, is absolutely key to this narrative and emotional goal.

The protagonist, Timothée Chalamet, seems to have consciously taken the accelerated, unfiltered route of Leonardo DiCaprio, completely stepping away from the easy, lucrative path of the youthful romantic leading man that Hollywood had laid out for him on a silver platter. His character, Marty Mauser, is as narcissistic, egocentric, and manipulative as he is deeply detestable. And yet, paradoxically, we can’t stop following him, trying to understand his twisted motivations, witnessing his meteoric rise and his spectacular fall with an almost sick fascination.

The frenetic journey Safdie plunges us into is chaotic, wild, and merciless, but absolutely memorable in its high speed narrative capacity. It’s also wild in its creative ability to weave parallel stories almost imperceptibly, interlacing plots and subplots with surgical dexterity that recalls the best moments of Scorsese and that frenetic, relentless rhythm of Goodfellas.

Perhaps drawing inspiration from someone like Werner Herzog, that other German master of controlled chaos and distorted reality, Safdie strategically includes non actors in his film, generating a texture of authenticity and reality that powerfully contrasts with the professional dramatic performances. Thus we see Abel Ferrara (a legendary director in his own right and poet of underground cinema), Tyler, The Creator (a multifaceted musical genius who demonstrates natural cinematic presence), Koto Kawaguchi (a real life table tennis champion), and Kevin O’Leary (one of the famous and feared sharks from Shark Tank) contributing raw and undeniable authenticity to this cinematic universe.

And while Safdie generously gives space to non actors to perform and discover themselves on screen, in the case of the tremendous Gwyneth Paltrow, he grants her a role that could seem inspired by her own life trajectory: an actress with a glorious past who, after a self imposed hiatus in her career, desperately seeks a way to return to her best moments of relevance. Is Paltrow playing herself? In a way, both Paltrow and O’Leary end up portraying sophisticated cinematic versions of themselves, blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

When I first heard about the movie, I naively thought I was going to see a conventional film about ping pong, which didn’t particularly appeal to me or excite me. But ping pong is just one more element, an almost incidental piece in the monumental and complex narrative machinery of Marty Supreme. The sport functions as an existential metaphor, as a battlefield, as a narrative excuse, but never as the true central theme of the film.

I wish I had seen this masterful film last year, because it would have made the torturous decision of which movie was the best of 2025 extremely difficult, almost impossible. Now, with the necessary perspective and time for reflection, I can categorically state that Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another were the best of last year, two cinematic works that irrefutably prove that auteur cinema is still alive, vibrant, and taking creative risks that only a few visionaries dare to embrace.

Josh Safdie has proven to be a true unstoppable force of cinematic nature, a visionary director who makes films overflowing with overwhelming visual power, narrative adrenaline injected straight into the veins, and meticulously orchestrated chaos like a symphony of disorder. He has emerged from the collaborative shadow with his brother not to engage in fratricidal competition, but to conclusively demonstrate that his individual voice is just as powerful and necessary.