Opinion How ‘Marty Supreme’ unpacks Indian ‘jugaad’, American exceptionalism and Donald Trump’s worldview
Perhaps the most unsettling fact about the film is that in Marty Mauser’s relentless climb, many of us recognise not a cautionary tale, but a familiar aspiration
Marty Supreme functions as a critique of the myths that sustain both American exceptionalism and Indian hustle culture. Even though director Josh Safdie’s film Marty Supreme is set in the early 1950s New York, the film’s soundtrack is peppered with bombastic ’80s pop songs and a lively synth score. The music underscores the unhinged ambition of Marty Mauser, a young, fiercely competitive table tennis player who wants to be the best in the game. Marty is a cocksure fast talker who will go to any lengths to make his dream come true, whether it be swindling, stealing or lying. In other words he’s the poster boy for that ubiquitous Indian slang term: Jugaad.
The reason I bring up the ’80s era inspired musical score is because through it, the film can subtly be seen commenting on how in the ’80s, during the Ronald Reagan era when American exceptionalism seeped into pop culture, you had films like Wall Street, Trading Places, and Risky Business. These advanced the idea of the central character making it big by hook or crook. The characters in these films worshipped at the altar of materialism, money and social status. And yet, the ’80s was also the era when Reagan’s election campaign harkened back to the era of the 1950s as the perennial “good old days”. But as we see in Marty Supreme, even during the ’50s, in post-war America, people are dealing with broken families, unhappy marriages, and a “make it or break it” mentality. Home owners are willing to shoot trespassers, people get knifed in the street over an argument, and neighbourhoods are divided up based on Jewish and Black identities.
The movie is telling us that possessing a cut-throat nature and being morally ambiguous is a unique American “value” whether it’s the 1950s or the 2020s.
In a stroke of casting genius, the film has real life Shark Tank judge Kevin O’Leary playing the owner of a pen company named Milton Rockwell. He brings a similar ruthless and abrasive nature that he’s known for on the reality show to his part of a businessman in the 1950s. In a staggering sequence, Rockwell displays a sadistic streak when Marty asks him to be a sponsor for his next tournament.
The effect is jarring and deliberate. A reality-TV capitalist from the 2000s slides seamlessly into a 1950s setting, suggesting that the language of American business has remained fundamentally unchanged. Strip away the aesthetics and the rhetoric, and the same power games persist. Capital, the film implies, has always spoken in the same tone.
That casting choice also carries an unmistakable contemporary echo. Rockwell’s blustering confidence, performative cruelty and belief that power itself is proof of merit inevitably recall the political ascent of Donald Trump, another reality television personality. Trump’s capitalist worldview, like Rockwell’s, treats humiliation as negotiation strategy and dominance as moral justification
Every small move Marty makes towards his goal gets him in a newer, more entangled mess. The trick the makers of the film pull off is to make us root for a narcissistic, arrogant, and overconfident main character.
For Indian viewers, this has uncomfortable resonance. Marty’s rise is driven not by institutional backing or ethical mentorship but by improvisation. He finds loopholes, bends systems, and survives on speed rather than stability. This mirrors the way jugaad is often celebrated in India: As cleverness born of scarcity, as innovation without infrastructure. Like Marty, we are encouraged to admire the ingenuity while ignoring the wreckage it leaves behind.
There is, however, one boundary Marty never crosses. While he is willing to hustle, cheat and manipulate his way into opportunity, the game of table tennis itself remains sacrosanct. Once he is at the table, skill is non-negotiable. Marty is rigid, even arrogant, about his own excellence. The rules may be bent to gain entry, but the contest itself cannot be faked. Access can be engineered, performance must still stand on its own.
Ultimately, Marty Supreme functions as a critique of the myths that sustain both American exceptionalism and Indian hustle culture. It asks what happens when cleverness replaces conscience, and when success becomes an end in itself.
And perhaps that is its most unsettling achievement. That in Marty Mauser’s relentless climb, many of us recognise not a cautionary tale, but a familiar aspiration.
The writer is a stand-up comedian and podcaster
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