The Smashing Machine (2025) and Marty Supreme (2025) are very similar movies – directed by a Safdie brother, the movies follow an American hero (whose name starts with M) who is almost at the top in an unpopular sport (at the time), who plays in Japan, who suffers a defeat from a foreign player, experiences what it means to lose, and ultimately later experiences a deeper form of winning that is not necessarily a ‘title’ win or a championship win. In fact, even some of the dialogue is similar – where Marty says that the thought of not winning “does not even enter [his] consciousness”, Mark in Smashing Machine says that he can literally and physically not even imagine what losing feels like because he has not suffered loss.
For all intents and purposes, the stories show the ridiculousness of the hustle culture by showing the meaninglessness of achieving the goals. In the pursuit of their win, both characters suffer – Marty is forced to suffer embarrassment (with a public spanking on his naked butt) among other things, while Mark ends up in a hospital because of an opioid addiction. Yet, while Marty wins a small table tennis competition against his Japanese rival, it is the birth of his child which culminates in him crying and collapsing at the end of the movie. Mark abandons his desire for the title championship and at the end, laughs and rejoices in the shower knowing he is free from the burden of winning and retaining the title (in contrast, the winner is shown holding his belt in a completely empty room, silent, pondering). In both cases, the movie is leading up to the win yet the satisfaction from the win is denied as the ‘be all end all’.
Yet, why do both movies fail to cultivate a sense of ‘anti-hustle’ mentality in the viewer. Marty Supreme is applauded for his hustling in the movie, with Marty’s quote on loss not entering his consciousness becoming extremely popular on social media. This is similar to Uncut Gems (another Safdie brothers movie) where Adam Sandler’s character, the hero of the movie, is also revered for his hustling.
I guess I am just wondering how, as viewers, can we watch a movie that shows the ridiculousness of hustling after our goals, and still maintain that this does not apply to our own goals. I have two big thoughts on this: (1) capitalist ideology creates this sense of exception – that what happened to Mark (his addiction) and Marty (his disreputation; his realisation that his child was far more important) are exceptional realisations and that they do not apply to all – as sense that this would not occur to us and our goals are different. In reality, the exception is the normal. The hustle system is built to create Mark and Marty’s problems and it is more common than we think; (2) to what extent is film as a medium able to bring about real change in the 21st century. This is something im still thinking about and do not have an answer yet.